Heartfelt surge of Icelandic support for refugees
Refugees walk at the Greek-Macedonian border near the town of Idomeni, Northern Greece. Photo/ AFP
As a consequence of statements by Icelandic Minister for Social Affairs and Housing, Eygló Harðardóttir urging all Icelanders to make a contribution towards assisting refugees in Iceland, a Facebook page of goodwill towards refugees was set up. A great number of Icelanders are pledging to offer help to Syrian refugees.
The page is called "Kæra Eygló Harðar - Sýrland kallar" (Dear Eygló, Syria calling) and on it people are offering all kinds of assistance and urging the Minister to invite more than 50 refugees to Iceland. The offers are now being noted and will be handed to the Red Cross next week.
People are offering accommodation, clothing, children's toys, social assistance, warmth, kindness, dinners, furniture, friendship, love, food, airfares to Iceland and even entire buildings. Some have also asked to be foster parents to Syrian children who are without parents. Hundreds of Icelanders have also registered as Red Cross volunteers in the last couple of days to help refugees to settle in the country. Icelandic Red Cross press officer Björn Teitsson also writes on the page and is touched by the heartfelt support shown by Icelanders to those in need.
A few of the statements written on the page are translated here below:
"Dear Eygló, I'm a single mother and have a 6 year old son. We live in our own apartment and we lead a good life. We want to foster a child in need. I'm a teacher and I could teach the child to speak, read and write Icelandic and to adapt to our society. We have clothes, a bed, toys and everything a child could need. I would of course pay for the child's airfare."
"Dear Eygló, there's not much I can offer as I am very poor, but I can knit. I will knit warm clothing for refugees for the coming winter."
"I live alone about 35 kilometres from Ísafjörður in a charming three bedroom house in a beautiful and quiet environment. The snow is cleared from the road twice a week. I can house one or two people, or a person with a child until they find a permanent place to live."
"Once I was eight years old and lived in a beautiful country in a small village surrounded by high mountains. I saw my friends and relatives every day. One beautiful day I saw black smoke from the next village and then the sky became dark. We were being bombed. I will never forget when tall soldiers marched into a maths class at school wearing heavy leather boots carrying guns. They walked around and laughed. That day I was as good as Pythogoras at Algebra. Since that day I've never been able to do maths and there's nothing the Red Cross can do about it :) We knew the war was starting and my family decided to flee before it was to late. Iceland was the first to spring to mind as we had a couple of relatives here. Today I'm 25 years old and live on this beautiful island surrounded by ocean, living a good life with my large family. I will never forget how lucky and thankful we are to Icelanders to their help, but I want others also to be as lucky as we were. Iceland is a big country and has amazing people. I want to be able to help others as I was helped. All children deserve to sleep at peace at night and wake up to the sound of an alarm clock, not bombs. It's so hard to see others suffer. Let's give what we can, I know we can do that. "
" My family and I have a spare room and offer it gladly , as well as support and financial assistance until better options are available. People with children particularly welcome."
Although a vast majority of the message on the Dear Eygló page are heartfelt messages of support, a few people have voiced a contrary opinion, saying that there are poor people in Iceland that need to be helped before admitting refugees to the country."No thanks, enough of these people," writes one person and another writes, "We need to fix things in our own country before trying to help others. Our system is rotten and these people will just go from bad to worse."
Here you can register as a Red Cross volunteer in Iceland.
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