Gemma Bird

Fires at a reception centre for asylum seekers on the Greek island of Lesbos have left thousands of people without shelter. Around 13,000 people – including those from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq and west Africa – lived at the Moria Reception and…

Community cinemas across the UK play a valuable role in bringing communities together to engage with film, build relationships, combat loneliness, to educate. In times of physical distancing they, and their representative body Cinema For All have found new ways…

At this time of year often people talk of going home for the holidays, of travelling to see family and friends, and of spending time in places where they grew up, reminiscing about the past and discussing, or even arguing,…

On the 6th of November the Committee for Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs welcomed the Minister of Citizen Protection in Greece to the European Parliament to discuss the Dublin Agreement and the conditions faced by refugees in Greece. As…

Last night there was a fire on the island of Samos, a fire that ripped through the temporary homes of human beings living in ‘the jungle’, the overfill space relied upon to house men, women and children in a Reception…

The hotspots on the Greek islands of Lesvos, Chios, Samos, Kos and Leros are struggling to manage an increase in the number of refugees and migrants crossing the Aegean Sea from Turkey in recent months. Between January and August 2019,…

In July of this year New Democracy came to power in Greece with a promise to crack down on immigration and the networks of solidarity surrounding refugees. In the last few weeks they have started to put this process into…

Men between the ages of 18 and 39 are often assumed to be the most likely to survive troubling conditions in refugee reception centres. Drawing on recent research on the Greek island of Samos, Gemma Bird highlights that this is now always…

There is an island in the South Aegean Sea that, until a few years ago, was known only as a tourist destination, then it was the ‘Hotspot’ or Refugee Reception Centre that got ignored, and then, of late, the media…