Context
Moria is a refugees camp on the Greece island Lesbos that initial was ment for 3.000 people. In the month of august 2019 the number of people got from 10.000 to 12.000 people in this camp. People are waiting often more than a year in horrible circumstances to get an approval to get further in Greece or Europe. Half of these are children, most of whom are dealing with big trauma’s.
The camp is inhuman to grew up in. Because there is to less space, food, information and perspective this camp is extremely violent. Several NGOs have already confirm that children under the age of 10 have attempted suicide due to a lack of future and perspective.
Playscape Moria
As a reaction on this horrible situation, Team Humanity created together with people of the camp a save place for women and children 100 meters of the camp. Together with this people we builded playscape Moria a playground and meeting place for women and children. So during the day children have a place where they can just be a child again, play and feel safe again. The playground is designed modulaire to created different play opportunities. Children can cilm on it, slide off it, jump off it, draw on it, rest on it, play in it, ….
Around the playscape we builded from old pallets benches where the women can take a rest, can connect with other women and in the same time can have an eye on their children. The benches are also designed as a play object for children. The hole playscape we covered up with a roof so in the hot summer, people can find shadow and in the winter it protect them from the rain. Everyday the playscape is used by almost 1300 children and women.
Creating together
This playscape wouldn't be possible without the help and collaboration of the people who living the camp. We worked together with Afghan carpenter, Afghan engineer, Afghan architect student, and many other who had essential know-how and skills to realize this project.
This people have an incredible resilience and want to participate to change things. They don’t want to be passive victim who are just waiting, they want to contribute. The value of this project is that we created together.
Workshop
With children we did different co-creation workshops to visualize their ideas and needs for this playscape. We explored the ideas though drawing workshops and a building workshops.
With the building workshop we used the frames of the playscape and then with different waste materials we shaped the ideas and desires together with the children
Act local think Global
For the inhabitants of Lesbos was tourisme always an important income but after the refugees crisis in 2015 tourism dropped. So a lot of the inhabitant of Lesbos got hit by it. We had for example the possibility to buy a ready made playground in Belgium and ship it to this island. But we found it important to contribute on a sustainable way to local economics and buy all materials in local places.
We builded the playscape local, but we find it important to also think Global, and inspire other people by making this playscape. For these reason we have made our design opensource so other people can create on different places this playscape. The playscape exist out of 6 different shapes/modules build on pallets, so the modules can be combined in different compositions.
This project in collaboration with Team Humanity, Cami Laureyssens, Siebe Geens, Kamiel Ceyssens, Arne Vyt and all talented volunteers. Sponserd by Vocatio (Nationale Loterij)
