Imagine not just being sick or in isolation after testing positive with COVID, but how alarmed you would feel if you didn't understand what was happening? This is the situation within the Mavrovouni Refugee Camp in Greece. We must urgently support the Eudaimonia Medical Team in continuing their translation services supporting refugee men, women and children as COVID cases rise to their highest levels yet and people's fears rise with it.
As COVID cases increase within Europe's largest refugee camp, demand and urgency for medical interpreters increases. More COVID rules and more COVID cases, are simultaneously resulting in the interpreters having to work longer hours and less efficiently; separating into teams to minimise their own risk and exposure. This increasing urgency coincided with a major funder withdrawing support with only days' notice making the need for funding for this service extremely urgent.
This project will bridge a funding gap for one month enabling the trained and experienced team of interpreters to continue their imperative work each day. It will fund living expenses of the interpreter team. The team's hire cars and petrol costs which enable them to move around the island between patients, the camp, hospital and more, and to buy supplies including snacks and tea to help keep energy levels up. During this month the team will do all they can to find new regular funding sources.
I can't begin to imagine how terrifying it must be to receive any medical diagnosis and not understand it properly. To have someone beside you who can explain it to you in your own language, calmly and factually must cause such enormous relief. But, in the context of a refugee camp, where thousands of strangers are already living their most difficult life side by side and tensions are at breaking point, a lack of understanding can cause untold trouble. The impact of this service is huge.
