As every four months, we are pleased to publish the aggregated data of our HEALTH ON THE MOVE programme. With the start of 2023 and thanks to the help of all of you, we have been able to provide more than 2.200 showers to people on the move and 64 specialized treatments (such as dentist, gynecologist, dermatologist or orthopedist examinations).
The European policies, that are put in place towards people migrating or seeking asylum from certain countries, make freedom of movement more and more difficult: thousands of people, from countries like Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq or Morocco, find themselves stranded in different countries both within the EU (see Greece, or Spain, in Ceuta and Melilla) or not (Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia) for weeks, months or in some cases even years: their journey is marked both by physical violence, as we have been denouncing for years, but also by an invisible violence, the psychological one.
These people even before arriving in the EU feel unwanted and unaccepted (and when in the EU they will have to begin a bureaucratic and psychological battle to obtain documents): we as No Name Kitchen (NNK) stand by these people during their path, and relationships of friendship and mutual support are forged that will endure, so we can keep knowing the challenges that people face when they finally reach a new destination.
We believe that health is a right for everyone: health in the sense of bio-psycho-social well-being.
Specialized treatments
Health for us means caring for the individual person:
- A toothache, that may not be an emergency, but can make all of us feel very bad, while PoM are denied dental care
- Physiotherapy after a bad accident that may have happened in their home country before the journey
- A gynecological check-up, perhaps after years of a woman not being able to get one
- Vaccinations, which should be free and available to anyone, but whose access is impossible because of PoM’s lack of documents
These are some examples of the specialized care we provide – connecting and accompanying people in public facilities, such as hospitals, when it is possible; and paying for private visits if there is no possibility to get treatment through a public facility.
This is the strength of our health programme and our specificity.
Furthermore, we would like to emphasize that for us prevention is much better than cure. That is why, included in the budget we devote to the health programme, we pay a lot of attention to distributing hygiene products and providing hot showers. Unfortunately, half of the diseases we find in people are due to the terrible hygienic conditions in which people are forced to live.
To help us to continue this project, you can donate in https://donorbox.org/health-on-the-move or checking here different ways of support. We are an independent movement. Nothing will be possible without people’s support.
