It has been a while since the idea of starting a Play for Peace club in Skaramangas Camp in Athens, Greece, became real. From the very beginning, we have shared stories from Swati and Agyat, PFP mentors who took an active role in sharing PFP games with young people in this camp. One of the volunteers who worked with Swati and Agyat, Belén Ruiz Rincón, is now the PFP Mentor at Skaramangas Camp under the tutelage of Swati and Agyat. She is now organizing PFP activities with the youth in camp, but moreover, as she says, she is gaining new friends each day and is sharing her stories from the camp. Belén explains that there are nearly 3,000 living in caravans and containers at the camp - most have been there for nearly a year and a half. Each of them has a personal story, but uncertainty and lost hope are the things that bind them. Some of them have lost their families or friends, and some of them don’t have information about their loved ones. The only thing that keeps them hopeful is the chance for a call from Europe that would grant them asylum. Having this top of mind, PFP volunteers and trainers know they must give their best to maintain motivation and willingness for daily activities amongst the youth. It is difficult to motivate these young people.
Volunteers have a very short period to build trust with those living in the camp. Belén mentions that she tends to use trust games, contact games, and blind games to make the youth more open and willing to participate in future activities. In this way, those who feel comfortable while participating can also help the mentors motivate others to join. Besides trust games, Belén facilitates team-building activities. When we asked Belén what drives her to do this work as a mentor, she said that she feels connected with people her age. Working with people aged 17-25, she believes these are the people whom she best identifies with and who can help pass on the PFP message and ideas to others. She also gives us an example of Josef, a 24-year-old man from Kurdistan, Syria, who is bilingual and helps Belén in translating to Kurdi or Arabic. He also constantly motivates others and is a great team leader. Working with PFP helps Belén fulfill her dream to help create more leaders among young people and children. At the moment, she is finding her driving force in the motivation of people she works with in camp and who are becoming her friends, which means that she is part of their driving force, too.
