One Happy Family is a new community centre for refugees and migrants on the Greek islands of Lesvos.
The centre is located on a hill about 10-minutes walk from Kara Tepe camp and about half an hour from Moria camp.
One Happy Family operates:
- A restaurant where food is cooked by refugees from Myanmar and Syria;
- A coffee shop and shisha (nargile) room, as well as a special womans’ shisha room on Saturday from 12:00 to 15:00;
- A cinema and a library;
- An education centre organised by Team Natan (Natan - International Humanitarian Aid) with courses in Greek, English, French, Arabic and Farsi, as well as courses in Computer, Crafts, Mathematics, both for minors and adults;
- Playground for children;
- Barber shop;
- Tailor shop;
- A ‘boutique’ for clothes distribution;
- Volley ball court;
- An internet radio-station (www.ohfradio.org);
- Garden.
The organisers plan to create soon a womans’ space and organise music courses and sport events as well. Also, free WiFi is available in the community centre.
Refugees and migrants have an active role in the project alongside volunteers and humanitarians, and they manage and run the centre. Migrants from Nepal have done the carpentry work and migrants from Algeria have designed the coffee shop. Teachers from Afghanistan and Syria are involved in the education centre. Migrants from Afghanistan run the radio-station and migrants from Ethiopia the cinema. Lots of other people and nationalities help in cleaning, building, painting, and activities..
How to access One Happy Family:
- One Happy Family community centre operates every day from 10:00 to 17:00, Sunday closed. Note that soon the opening hours will change, since the centre is not officially open yet;
- The community centre is located on a hill about 10-minutes walk from Kara Tepe camp. If you are not near Kara Tepe, you can take the bus line “Mytilene - Kara Tepe - Moria - Silver Bay” (there are daily frequent routes every hour), stop in Kara Tepe and walk up to the hill (at the opposite side of Kara Tepe camp). The bus start line is just opposite Sapfous square in the town of Mytilene. One way bus ticket costs 1.10 euro.
Photo: One Happy Family
