ECHO is a Mobile, Multilingual, Lending Library.

We are a small but perfectly formed team working to connect with people living in 6 isolated refugee camps around Athens, offering a temporary community and respite through reading, tools for self-study, signposting of services, art based sessions for young people and adults, games, music and lots of chatting.

Isolation has become a key policy of migration management in Greece and beyond. Financial and legal support for asylum seekers is now accessible only for those living in refugee camps. While not being carceral structures per se, the lack of free or accessible means of transport to the city and the lack of services within the camps, turn these places into dehumanizing structures, hiding and excluding communities from the rest of society. ECHO is now on af a handful of independent groups reaching some of the refugee camps surrounding Athens. We offer respite, distraction, information and tools for self-education and a bridge between camps and the city on a regular basis, to counter the effect of these policies on the well-being and mental health of people forced to live in isolated camps.

Our library drives to 4 refugee camps on a weekly basis (Malakasa, Oinofyta, Ritsona, Thiva), to 2 town location (Platia Victoria, and Notara26 squat) also on a weekly basis, and to 2 more camps (in Corinthos and Lavrio) twice a month. Camps are located between 40 and 90 km from Athens, and especially those we visit every week are extremely badly connected with the city.

Our session, at each location, lasts between 1.5 and 2 (sometimes more) hours. We loan and return books, give out language learning materials, support people learning English, Greek and German with conversations, play music and games and run literary and art-based activities with children and adults, depending on the camp. 

At each session, we aim to have a team of coordinators and volunteers able to speak the main languages spoken by camps' residents and with the right skills to keep the library a truly welcoming place and run the session smoothly and safely.

Books are the backbone of the library. We are constantly seeking to improve our catalogue in each language, especially those less accessible in Greece and Europe. While books in European languages are easy to source via donations, we also strive to offer our readers multiple non-mainstream and non-western reading choices, and accessible texts for those improving their language skills. Often we proceed sifting through donation boxes, contacting publishers for more specific requests, and buying targeted books. For other languages, sourcing donation is more time-consuming and expensive. It relies on the connections and networks built over the years, on the help of friends travelling to countries where such books are easier to access, and on regularly buying books online.

We are always on the lookout for volunteers who are open and friendly and are willing to come and work through language barriers and connect with our library users. If you like to plan activities with children, we are also looking for you! Normally our volunteers commit to coming once or twice per week for at least three months, but we occasionally make exceptions to this, especially for people with specific skills such as language or van-driving.