Yesterday was the day we played with the children and today I helped Alba at the Nurture Project to film a short message for people volunteering in the camps and giving out baby food and bottles, ie. please do not give out powdered baby formula and baby bottles.

The project works with mothers and babies to provide formula and safe information about preventing gastrointestinal issues for babies and infants. Unfortunately by simply providing bottles and teats or the incorrect formula volunteers are inadvertently making babies sick. By getting the message out to independent volunteers visiting the camps, these independent volunteers to please link with the established nutrition teams first listen to what they need help with, then we can all help stop preventable disease.

I also visited Camp Eko less that 24 hours later and it really struck me just how much it’s grown and how fast it’s doing so. It currently has about 3000 residents and a large number of children too.

Filming the clip for baby and infant nutrition today meant I got to see in the baby washing tent and it was fantastic. Hot water, privacy, talcum powder, towels and everything needed was supplied. Even better was everyone had an appointment and a slot to take care of their children so no big scary queues. Still .. to need to make an appointment in order to have privacy and hot water for your child .. there’s so much to break your heart here. Yet so much help being offered too by independent volunteers and NGO’s.

In Day One’s blog I shared a photo of the camp looking so incredibly peaceful from a distance (shown above), well that distance tells a lie. Close up the conditions are awful.

The photograph above is literally the view from where the last cars are on the road above. There is only one space in the entire camp where the media are welcomed with open arms in the hope they share the message. Everywhere else all photographers are advised to ask permission before taking photographs. Sometimes this can be hard without disrupting the natural scene, for example where I photographed all the men queueing quietly for the barber to cut their hair. For this reason I blur the faces to protect their identity.

Today was trying to find the Save the Children crew to volunteer but in the camp the size of a small town we couldn’t find them. I wanted to capture the nutrition film as there are LOTS of independent volunteers at the side of the road handing out bottles which are basically single use as they can’t be re-sterilised and are used again and again, creating sick babies. Such kind gestures creating breeding grounds for poorly children, especially when mixing mothers milk, cows milk, specialised milk and baby powder formula, their poor new tummies can’t cope and become sick very quickly. This filming was done at the mother and baby tent at Camp Eko, which to those who don’t know Greece is a petrol station, like a BP garage in the UK. BP also have petrol stations in Greece and there is also a BP Camp very close to Idomeni main camp.

This is information overload but a LOT happened today.

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  Thanks for the media, our children are drowning in the mud. Take off your humanity mask.

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  Camping in the muddy grounds

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  Help Us, Open The Borders

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  Help Us, Open The Borders

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  Help Us, Open The Borders, with childrens washing out to dry

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  Washing out to dry amongst the filth and smoke.

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  Getting a trim or full shave from the barber

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  Washing out to dry amongst the filth and smoke.

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  A charging station in Camp Eko

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  Washing out to dry in Camp Eko, a petrol station grounds.