Safe passages bags

One of the key integration and educational projects Lesvos Solidarity has developed is the Workshop Safe Passage-Bag. This is an upcycling project where bags are being created by refugees and locals living in Mytilini. The bags are created with the lifejackets left on the shorelines in Lesvos, and used by refugees that have crossed the Aegean Sea from Turkey.
The idea of the “Workshop Safe Passage-Bags ” was conceived in 2013 and materialised in the summer of 2015 in Lesvos. The Lesvos island has a Lifejackets graveyard that counts more than 100.000 pieces. Lifejackets are a symbol of the unsafe passage millions of refugees are forced to undertake as a result of inhumane European border policies.

Due to the huge amount of plastic littering the beautiful beaches of the island, we
felt the need to contribute to the effort to clean the beaches and find a way to recycle. Rather than leaving the used lifejackets buried in a land field, we wanted to give them a new meaning, and generate a positive reminder that ‘where there is a will there is a way’.

Each bag carries with it the history of a forced travel, each bag will constitute in the
future a solid historical proof of where violence can lead to, distributed among the
people who care. Carrying a Safe Passage bag is therefore a reminder: No one
leaves their home and no one puts their child on a boat, unless the sea is safer than
the land. With the Safe Passage Bags workshop we want to raise awareness: let the message be heard all around the world and make sure that it won’t be forgotten.

Visit the e-shop to buy our bags, or support us with Paypal account lesolpaypal@gmail.com.