At the beginning of the summer of 2017, I went to Serbia and worked there as a volunteer in its refugee camps. My steps were directed to the northwest of Serbia - to Šid on the border with Croatia. I traveled here as part of the Czech association Pomáhejme lidem na úteku (PLNU), which has been active in the field of helping refugees for the second year. Its goal is to improve the conditions of people in the camps, at the same time to spread awareness about this issue in the Czech Republic. Official Adashevciach and Principovaci camps

The association Help people on the run (or Czech team, as it is more commonly known in the camps by local authorities and refugees themselves) works in two official camps: Adaševci (former motel) and Principovaci (former hospital). These camps are under the administration of a Serbian government body: the Commissariat for Refugees and Migration in Serbia, which was already established during the 1990s in connection with the ongoing wars in the former Yugoslavia. People here have secured access to water, regular food, health care, they can also leave the camps for a short time. In addition to PLNU, other organizations such as SOS children's villages, Operation Mobilization and Caritas operate here.

The national representation in the camps is diverse: the most numerous groups are Afghans and Iraqis. There are also people from Syria, Pakistan, Morocco, Cameroon and even Cuba. Families with children are accommodated in buildings where several families share one room, while men or teenagers who are traveling alone are mainly accommodated in "rub-halls" - heated large tents that can accommodate up to 100 people at a time.

The volunteers are accommodated together with the coordinator in a house located in the village of Berkasovo, near Šid. I have experienced six, but also fourteen people in the house at once. On average, however, there were around eight to nine volunteers of various age and professional categories. The volunteer house is less than half an hour away by car from both refugee camps in which PLNU operates.

During my stay, the main activities of the volunteers included ensuring the operation of the laundry from Monday to Friday in Adaševci and distributing hygiene packages twice a week in Principovaci. We had to wear identification cards when entering and during our stay in the camps. The male volunteers were mainly responsible for ensuring night peace in the "rub-halls".

As for the laundry, there were only 9 washing machines for the then 1100 (currently 600) refugees. For this reason, laundry is done on the shortest - thirty-minute program, while everyone must have a ticket from the commissariat with a given time - when they can come to wash. We managed to provide 250 to 300 washing machines per week. A frequently used phrase among the volunteers was: "no ticket no wash" = "we do not wash without a ticket", as it often happened that people did not have a ticket with them, or came at a different time than they had.

The room with the laundry room also has a makeshift library

A makeshift library is also set up in the room where the laundry room is located. In addition to fiction and children's books, there are also textbooks in various languages: English, German and French. People on the run can fill the waiting time in a meaningful way and learn something that will definitely come in handy when they enter Europe. In the camp, they don't have many opportunities to realize themselves. They fill their time in different ways. Men are spending time on wifi or playing sports, children are running around the entire camp and sometimes they run up to us-volunteers and demand attention. The women spend their time in the sewing room, where only children have access besides them. There they create beautiful crocheted or sewn products and talk about their daily sorrows and joys.

In addition to working in the laundry and handing out packages, we also prepared various leisure activities. It was, for example, the operation of a trampoline, games with children, musical evenings. Among the most popular activities was definitely the launch of the summer cinema. We started with the screening of the tale The Wolf and the Hare. Volunteers also help with informal tutoring of some of the European languages ​​- whether for children or adults. Incidentally, there is also a school set up in the camps, where teachers from among the refugees themselves teach. In September, refugee children entered local Serbian schools. They go there in shifts (for two hours a day), attending subjects such as: the basics of Cyrillic, mathematics, English and the like.

Crossing borders

Many of these people have been in refugee camps for several months and often on the road for a few years. They do not know what awaits them, when they will get out of the camp or if at all. Although the closing of the borders in March 2016 meant a certain calming of the situation and a smaller number of people - trying to get to Europe. However, it did not bring a solution to the migration issue, as many might think. At least not for the tens of thousands of people who are locked up in refugee camps - located across the Balkan route. And equally not for the countries on whose shoulders this problem falls. Currently, the only legal way to proceed is through Hungary. The process involves endless waiting in the camps until it is their turn (which can be a month or a year from now). Only 10 people are allowed to continue each day. This fact makes people feel powerless and desperate, so they try to get out of there illegally - by crossing the borders, which also results in an increased incidence of smuggling activities. After my one-month stay in Serbia, I returned to the warmth of home, an internship at the ADRA organization in Slovakia and a return to university - Palacky University, while the refugees who have been in the camps for several months, remained there. I don't know how the situation will develop further and what will happen to these people. Solving the so-called "migration crisis" will not be easy, and I myself do not have the right key to crack it. First of all, however, it is necessary to prevent conflicts in the countries of their origin - so that their inhabitants can live a safe and dignified life, and do not have to flee to Europe.

Author of the text: Zuzana Daubnerová, student of the Department of Development and Environmental Studies of the PrF UP in Olomouc