Ancient Olive Mill Transformed Into ‘Solidarity Kitchen’ on Lesbos

Overlooking the sea from the Greek island of Lesbos, an ancient olive mill hosted a com­mu­nal kitchen for refugees dur­ing August.

The ​‘sol­i­dar­ity kitchen’ was set up by Sant’Egidio, a Catholic social ser­vice asso­ci­a­tion, to offer food and relief to the pop­u­la­tion liv­ing in the Moria refugee camp, the biggest in Europe.

“It is the sec­ond year that we orga­nize the ​‘sol­i­dar­ity hol­i­days’ in Lesbos,” Simona Lanzellotto, a vol­un­teer at Sant’Egidio and a human rights lawyer, told Olive Oil Times. ​“The sched­ule usu­ally includes a series of activ­i­ties with the peo­ple who stay in the camp.”

The Moria recep­tion cen­ter was built to host 3,100 peo­ple, but cur­rently houses more than 15,000 migrants and asy­lum seek­ers – more than 20,000 were housed in the camp last win­ter – mostly from Afghanistan, but also from Iraq, Syria, Somalia, Burkina Faso and other sub-Saharan African coun­tries.

“We went to bring food, but also friend­ship and sol­i­dar­ity,” Lanzellotto said. ​“However, this time was very par­tic­u­lar, due to the Covid-19 safety restric­tions.”

The refugees con­tinue to be under lock­down and, while pre­vi­ously they were allowed to leave the camp to find food, they are now restricted to its con­fines.

“Arriving on the island, we dis­cov­ered this struc­ture, which is very fas­ci­nat­ing with the ancient mill­stones and wide spaces in front of the sea,” Lanzellotto said. ​“It was the ideal place to arrange the meals while respect­ing social dis­tanc­ing and all the other safety mea­sures.”

The owner rented the mill to the vol­un­teers for a small fee and the vol­un­teers san­i­tized and reor­ga­nized the space.

One of the rooms of the build­ing has been trans­formed into a pantry, while the old store­room was con­verted to a class­room for English lessons for both chil­dren, who usu­ally can­not go to school in the camp, and adults.

“The meals were pre­pared in the lab­o­ra­tory of another asso­ci­a­tion oper­at­ing in the camp, the Hope Project,” Lanzellotto said. ​“Then, the food was deliv­ered to the mill and served in the main room, where in the past the olives were pressed and that today has become a place of sol­i­dar­ity.”

The Sant’Egidio vol­un­teers serve up to 1,000 meals a day in the mill and in the rest of the camp.

• Sant’Egidio
• AgenSIR