One of our key integration and vocational projects is our Safe Passage Bags workshop, which started back in the summer of 2015. This is an upcycling project where refugees and locals create bags out of lifejackets left on the shorelines in Lesvos, and used by refugees who crossed the Aegean Sea from Turkey.

Due to the huge amount of plastic littering the beautiful beaches of the island, we felt the need to contribute to the effort to clean the beaches and find a way to recycle. Rather than leaving the used lifejackets buried in a land field, we wanted to give them a new meaning, and generate a positive reminder that ‘where there is a will there is a way’.

The bag workshop gives people a chance to gain their dignity back. They can make a living and support themselves by creating beautiful bags out of discarded objects.