thank you my life can be divided into
two parts
life before Lesbos and life after Lesbos
in my life before lesbos I was a
full-time pop star in my country of the
Netherlands my time was spent traveling
touring playing concerts and my primary
goal was to move as many people as I
could with the power of song and music
in life after lesbos I can add a few new
skills to my resume sea rescue cap
building latrine digging and the ability
to cook a relatively decent meal for
1500 people in a short amount of time in
the late summer of 2015 the world was
rocked by a photograph of a little
four-year-old boy drowned on the coast
of Turkey trying to make his way to
Europe
his name was Island Cordy and he became
the face of a crisis that had only been
in our periphery up until then he became
the face that I couldn’t shake I had to
do something on social media I could see
that there were actually refugees
arriving in Amsterdam where I’m from and
sleeping on the train station in benches
without really giving it too much
thought I packed a bag I got on a
bicycle like all Dutch people do I’ve
made my way over to the train station
and there were other people on bicycles
with bags who could not let that news go
together we started doing night shifts
every night we would bring food blankets
toys water hugs whatever you needed we
tried to provide the first person I ever
met who was considered a refugee was
Hamid Hameed lost his wife in the
shelling in Syria and traveled with his
five little girls across eight countries
to arrive at my doorstep in Amsterdam he
was tired he was scared he was nervous
he was grateful and he was determined
and helping Hameed
the most natural thing I’ve ever done
and it became easy
the trains kept coming in waves and
waves of families kept coming off of
them each one like Hameed the elderly
wounded people with fresh wounds limping
across the continent and then children
started arriving alone without mothers
and fathers you have to imagine if
you’re in a war zone and you’re quite
poor and you’ve lost everything you’ve
owned and you have the opportunity to
save one person you save your child and
so the child is sent alone across the
route it is estimated that 10,000
children have gone missing these
children would arrive at the train
station with the telephone numbers of
their mothers sewn inside their jackets
and there was nothing more gratifying
than being able to make one phone call
to one mother and say that one child was
safe my world became consumed by their
stories I couldn’t think of anything
else and every person told their story
they were generous about their story
it’s how I learned about this little
tiny island called lesbos in Greece it’s
about 14 kilometers off the Turkish
coast and it’s the first step into
Europe in 2015 half a million people
took the journey at the hands of human
traffickers in tiny rubber dinghies and
tried to reach lesbos the island was
overwhelmed I could see it on social
media with only fishermen and locals and
a handful of volunteers working little
to no international aid at this point
and that shocked me on social media I
could see that there were people like me
going and so I had a whiskey or two with
a friend of mine and I convinced him
maybe we should go
we made a spontaneous decision to go for
ten days and I stayed for two and a half
years I want to tell you what it’s like
to have your boots on the ground in
lesbos it’s a 45-minute flight from
Athens it’s a holiday island and when
you get off the tarmac the flight
attendant to this day still
enjoy your stay it’s surreal there are
majestic mountains and olive trees and
idyllic little fishing villages and the
week before I arrived twenty-eight human
beings drowned in front of the village
where I arrived with only the little
Yaya’s and the fishermen and a few
volunteers helping enjoy your stay
so when there’s no plan and when there’s
no instructions and there’s no one
telling you to go this way or that way
you just try to do the next right thing
and for my friend and I on that first
day on the island it meant heading to
the coast you have to imagine every inch
of this gorgeous island covered in life
vests and broken boats and you stand
there and you light a fire and you
become part of a human lighthouse you
have a flashlight that you’ve bought in
your home country and you turn it on and
you sweep it across the water and it
catches the reflection of a life vest
and the wind starts to carry the shouts
and suddenly there’s a boat and it
becomes very real and you don’t know
what to do I don’t know what to do
I’ve never done this before I just do
the next right thing and that means
getting in the water up through my
ankles but the boat swerves and suddenly
I’m up to the water in my waist and I
have to hold the boat and suddenly there
you are face to face and it becomes very
real very fast and the boats are coming
over and over again and you start to
learn how to do this mother’s throw
their babies over the edge of the water
into your hands they don’t know you and
over and over again you’re carrying
people over the edge of the water and
there are people in hypothermia there
are people hyperventilating there are
people in shock and in every single
moment we are just trying to do the next
right thing the roads from the coast to
the calves were covered and thousands of
people were trying to find their way to
the next step it was winter and there
was driving rain and only a few locals
helping and it was death
the official camps at the time were
rudimentary at best
there were tarps covering families
really high fences overcrowd no water no
food no heat no sanitation it was a
prison actually it might have been worse
than a prison the lack of information
caused people to be tense and violent
sometimes because they were in full
survival mode it was a barely managed
chaos and we had to do something to help
we started working alongside the locals
that were already there I must have made
three thousand sandwiches a day I got
pretty good at it and I think we bought
every single pair of socks on the island
we tried to fill the gaps and this is
how movement on the ground started me
and four of my friends who were all
deeply affected by what we were seeing
and what we weren’t seeing in terms of a
response trying to activate the networks
that we all have individually to get to
work we wanted to chip away at the chaos
so we started we started small we were
naive but it served us quite well for
example we were thinking music festivals
we’ve all been to them thousands of
people are being led and ushered through
all of their basic needs safely and
securely if we can activate the music
networks within our friend group maybe
we can learn a thing or two there’s no
heat here how do we get those big
festival heaters there’s no light how do
we get the stage lights there’s no crowd
control how do we get those gates that
we’ve all stood up against when we’re
listening to our favorite songs at
concerts
there’s no hot food for people coming
out of the sea can you imagine in
November with your babies and you get a
sandwich with two pieces of white bread
and a piece of cheese there’s no hot
food can we bring festival style food
trucks to the island there’s no
communication between the people on the
coast who are trying to save lives how
do we get mobile Wi-Fi to the most
remote areas on this island
very naive but it worked with the basic
hardware and hot food in the bellies and
lines making you know forming or in an
orderly fashion people started to feel
calmer and we could see that what we
were doing was actually having an effect
we had little to no bureaucracy we had
pockets full of cash and a lot of blood
sweat and tears and a big network we
kind of felt like the a-team without the
van
you know just quick fast collaborate
with whoever is there and let’s go the
work continued and we never really
stopped working but in the second year
of the humanitarian crisis the entire
landscape on lesbos changed again with
the dawn of the eu-turkey deal this
notorious deal people could no longer
keep moving into Europe or on to Athens
and onto other countries
now the island was a holding area and
people were stuck there was no going
forward there was no going back the
camps were filling up they were at
capacity and we had to really change the
way our care was presented it wasn’t an
emergency situation it was now very
long-term so we stood there and we asked
ourselves what is the next right thing
the municipality of lesbos after seeing
our work invited us to become partners
in Karratha Bay godith FA is a space for
about 1300 people and it’s designated
for the most vulnerable and for families
the most vulnerable meaning
single-parent households pregnant
mothers the injured the elderly the
mentally ill those who have been rescued
from shipwrecks people who deserve and
need an extra level of care and
protection in the experience of the
emergency prior we had forgotten that
the crowds were made up of individuals
they were the refugees and we were the
helpers but here in Calais FA the
individual became visible with all of
their hopes and dreams all of their
fears all of their traumas all of their
stories and time stretching out in front
of them with no prospect of moving
forward and moving backwards our core
values were to rien
reduce human element and the heart into
the care that we had seen and had seemed
missing they would no longer be referred
to as refugees this was our first change
they were now guests and they were now
residence God’s FA would not be referred
to as a camp it would be referred to as
a village as a community during the
emergency we had seen the camps and they
were inhuman and basic and this was not
what we wanted we wanted a community the
goal we like to call it is camp to
campus for 70 years the humanitarian
response has been the same create an
area slaps some tents up put up a fence
give them the basics and wait and hope
for something to change how could we
return dignity and solidarity and
purpose and community into a response
that we really felt was failing so this
is our dream for a concept called camp
to campus and we work on our dream daily
we want to create change from within a
community as well as to build a bridge
from these new communities that are
popping up around the world to the host
communities that are often neglected and
forgotten so we got started together
with the residents of the camps excuse
me of the village we built solar energy
we created solar energy for the entire
area so that each little house had a
light and so that the burden of the
energy costs would no longer be the
responsibility of Lesbos of community
already suffering economically we vowed
to spend the money that we raised from
our donors locally and therefore to
create a bridge with vendors shopkeepers
and farmers we no longer allowed lines
to happen if something had to reach a
guest in the community it should be done
face-to-face house-to-house
person-to-person and that’s how we
discovered the teachers and the farmers
and the engineers and the musicians and
the carpenters because that’s who
refugees are there all of you with one
name refugee
together with the barsa foundation we
started a football program and every
single day the little boys and girls
have got a tip they get on buses they
leave the village and they head out to
local football pitches we’re local Greek
coaches who are employed by our program
work alongside young team leaders from
within the community who are trained the
boys and girls are taught the basic core
values of ambition and humility and
respect and effort so you’ve got boys
and girls different religions different
languages
all playing together with Greek kids we
built community kitchens in cadets at
bay and this reintroduced choice to the
guests and the residents of the village
they weren’t standing in line anymore
for food that we decided was good for
them now they could cook for their
families and for their neighbors and
what happens in a kitchen is you see
what home used to look like cultures are
exchanged stories are shared over pots
and pans my kitchen and your kitchen and
their kitchen together with because we
carry another organization that we work
so closely with we built a community
center within the community center a
myriad of activities happen but once a
week the village gets together for a
dance party it sounds trivial but it is
absolutely an energizing battery you
hear songs from all these countries and
at the end of every night they end in a
circle and they sing in Arabic and
Kurdish and Greek and Dutch even in
English and French and it creates
community where community was lost God
at that Bay is colorful and it’s
peaceful and it’s loving and we fight
daily to keep a consistent level of care
going against all the odds because we
see that the environment affects the
soul individuals become individuals and
they flourish again we believe in the
power of this change despite all of this
hard work lesbos is still in crisis and
the crisis is worse than it ever has
been and I never thought I would say
that the numbers are up the media
spotlight is gone the camps are
overflowing and there is no more room
for new people in God’s FA so on the
hills and
Mountains and the villages around the
island tents are coming up again we find
ourselves pivoting yet again between
providing emergency basic care and
digging our heels in not to compromise
an inch for the care we’re already
giving the average time a refugee spends
in a refugee camp around the world is
seventeen and a half years I want that
to sink in there are 65 million refugees
in the world
and the question I always get asked is
so what’s the solution well if I knew we
wouldn’t have this problem so what is
the next right thing
I believe that transforming the
environment has an immediate result and
can actually change the narrative and
possibly even the future of the people
that were serving
I want to reclaim community and kindness
from the chaos of this world I want to
remember that the individual makes up
the crowd no matter how big the crowd
and I want to help restore dignity to
people who have lost it because dignity
is the first step to healing and there
is a lot of healing that needs to be
done when you have lost everything that
is you and when you have lost your home
and all the things that identify who you
are when you have so much pain and so
much trauma then there is nothing more
human than to expect to land in a place
that is safe loving and lifting and so
we move towards these goals and small
but determined steps led by the heart
and powered by the idea of individuals
helping individuals and that for me is
the next right thing thank you you
two parts
life before Lesbos and life after Lesbos
in my life before lesbos I was a
full-time pop star in my country of the
Netherlands my time was spent traveling
touring playing concerts and my primary
goal was to move as many people as I
could with the power of song and music
in life after lesbos I can add a few new
skills to my resume sea rescue cap
building latrine digging and the ability
to cook a relatively decent meal for
1500 people in a short amount of time in
the late summer of 2015 the world was
rocked by a photograph of a little
four-year-old boy drowned on the coast
of Turkey trying to make his way to
Europe
his name was Island Cordy and he became
the face of a crisis that had only been
in our periphery up until then he became
the face that I couldn’t shake I had to
do something on social media I could see
that there were actually refugees
arriving in Amsterdam where I’m from and
sleeping on the train station in benches
without really giving it too much
thought I packed a bag I got on a
bicycle like all Dutch people do I’ve
made my way over to the train station
and there were other people on bicycles
with bags who could not let that news go
together we started doing night shifts
every night we would bring food blankets
toys water hugs whatever you needed we
tried to provide the first person I ever
met who was considered a refugee was
Hamid Hameed lost his wife in the
shelling in Syria and traveled with his
five little girls across eight countries
to arrive at my doorstep in Amsterdam he
was tired he was scared he was nervous
he was grateful and he was determined
and helping Hameed
the most natural thing I’ve ever done
and it became easy
the trains kept coming in waves and
waves of families kept coming off of
them each one like Hameed the elderly
wounded people with fresh wounds limping
across the continent and then children
started arriving alone without mothers
and fathers you have to imagine if
you’re in a war zone and you’re quite
poor and you’ve lost everything you’ve
owned and you have the opportunity to
save one person you save your child and
so the child is sent alone across the
route it is estimated that 10,000
children have gone missing these
children would arrive at the train
station with the telephone numbers of
their mothers sewn inside their jackets
and there was nothing more gratifying
than being able to make one phone call
to one mother and say that one child was
safe my world became consumed by their
stories I couldn’t think of anything
else and every person told their story
they were generous about their story
it’s how I learned about this little
tiny island called lesbos in Greece it’s
about 14 kilometers off the Turkish
coast and it’s the first step into
Europe in 2015 half a million people
took the journey at the hands of human
traffickers in tiny rubber dinghies and
tried to reach lesbos the island was
overwhelmed I could see it on social
media with only fishermen and locals and
a handful of volunteers working little
to no international aid at this point
and that shocked me on social media I
could see that there were people like me
going and so I had a whiskey or two with
a friend of mine and I convinced him
maybe we should go
we made a spontaneous decision to go for
ten days and I stayed for two and a half
years I want to tell you what it’s like
to have your boots on the ground in
lesbos it’s a 45-minute flight from
Athens it’s a holiday island and when
you get off the tarmac the flight
attendant to this day still
enjoy your stay it’s surreal there are
majestic mountains and olive trees and
idyllic little fishing villages and the
week before I arrived twenty-eight human
beings drowned in front of the village
where I arrived with only the little
Yaya’s and the fishermen and a few
volunteers helping enjoy your stay
so when there’s no plan and when there’s
no instructions and there’s no one
telling you to go this way or that way
you just try to do the next right thing
and for my friend and I on that first
day on the island it meant heading to
the coast you have to imagine every inch
of this gorgeous island covered in life
vests and broken boats and you stand
there and you light a fire and you
become part of a human lighthouse you
have a flashlight that you’ve bought in
your home country and you turn it on and
you sweep it across the water and it
catches the reflection of a life vest
and the wind starts to carry the shouts
and suddenly there’s a boat and it
becomes very real and you don’t know
what to do I don’t know what to do
I’ve never done this before I just do
the next right thing and that means
getting in the water up through my
ankles but the boat swerves and suddenly
I’m up to the water in my waist and I
have to hold the boat and suddenly there
you are face to face and it becomes very
real very fast and the boats are coming
over and over again and you start to
learn how to do this mother’s throw
their babies over the edge of the water
into your hands they don’t know you and
over and over again you’re carrying
people over the edge of the water and
there are people in hypothermia there
are people hyperventilating there are
people in shock and in every single
moment we are just trying to do the next
right thing the roads from the coast to
the calves were covered and thousands of
people were trying to find their way to
the next step it was winter and there
was driving rain and only a few locals
helping and it was death
the official camps at the time were
rudimentary at best
there were tarps covering families
really high fences overcrowd no water no
food no heat no sanitation it was a
prison actually it might have been worse
than a prison the lack of information
caused people to be tense and violent
sometimes because they were in full
survival mode it was a barely managed
chaos and we had to do something to help
we started working alongside the locals
that were already there I must have made
three thousand sandwiches a day I got
pretty good at it and I think we bought
every single pair of socks on the island
we tried to fill the gaps and this is
how movement on the ground started me
and four of my friends who were all
deeply affected by what we were seeing
and what we weren’t seeing in terms of a
response trying to activate the networks
that we all have individually to get to
work we wanted to chip away at the chaos
so we started we started small we were
naive but it served us quite well for
example we were thinking music festivals
we’ve all been to them thousands of
people are being led and ushered through
all of their basic needs safely and
securely if we can activate the music
networks within our friend group maybe
we can learn a thing or two there’s no
heat here how do we get those big
festival heaters there’s no light how do
we get the stage lights there’s no crowd
control how do we get those gates that
we’ve all stood up against when we’re
listening to our favorite songs at
concerts
there’s no hot food for people coming
out of the sea can you imagine in
November with your babies and you get a
sandwich with two pieces of white bread
and a piece of cheese there’s no hot
food can we bring festival style food
trucks to the island there’s no
communication between the people on the
coast who are trying to save lives how
do we get mobile Wi-Fi to the most
remote areas on this island
very naive but it worked with the basic
hardware and hot food in the bellies and
lines making you know forming or in an
orderly fashion people started to feel
calmer and we could see that what we
were doing was actually having an effect
we had little to no bureaucracy we had
pockets full of cash and a lot of blood
sweat and tears and a big network we
kind of felt like the a-team without the
van
you know just quick fast collaborate
with whoever is there and let’s go the
work continued and we never really
stopped working but in the second year
of the humanitarian crisis the entire
landscape on lesbos changed again with
the dawn of the eu-turkey deal this
notorious deal people could no longer
keep moving into Europe or on to Athens
and onto other countries
now the island was a holding area and
people were stuck there was no going
forward there was no going back the
camps were filling up they were at
capacity and we had to really change the
way our care was presented it wasn’t an
emergency situation it was now very
long-term so we stood there and we asked
ourselves what is the next right thing
the municipality of lesbos after seeing
our work invited us to become partners
in Karratha Bay godith FA is a space for
about 1300 people and it’s designated
for the most vulnerable and for families
the most vulnerable meaning
single-parent households pregnant
mothers the injured the elderly the
mentally ill those who have been rescued
from shipwrecks people who deserve and
need an extra level of care and
protection in the experience of the
emergency prior we had forgotten that
the crowds were made up of individuals
they were the refugees and we were the
helpers but here in Calais FA the
individual became visible with all of
their hopes and dreams all of their
fears all of their traumas all of their
stories and time stretching out in front
of them with no prospect of moving
forward and moving backwards our core
values were to rien
reduce human element and the heart into
the care that we had seen and had seemed
missing they would no longer be referred
to as refugees this was our first change
they were now guests and they were now
residence God’s FA would not be referred
to as a camp it would be referred to as
a village as a community during the
emergency we had seen the camps and they
were inhuman and basic and this was not
what we wanted we wanted a community the
goal we like to call it is camp to
campus for 70 years the humanitarian
response has been the same create an
area slaps some tents up put up a fence
give them the basics and wait and hope
for something to change how could we
return dignity and solidarity and
purpose and community into a response
that we really felt was failing so this
is our dream for a concept called camp
to campus and we work on our dream daily
we want to create change from within a
community as well as to build a bridge
from these new communities that are
popping up around the world to the host
communities that are often neglected and
forgotten so we got started together
with the residents of the camps excuse
me of the village we built solar energy
we created solar energy for the entire
area so that each little house had a
light and so that the burden of the
energy costs would no longer be the
responsibility of Lesbos of community
already suffering economically we vowed
to spend the money that we raised from
our donors locally and therefore to
create a bridge with vendors shopkeepers
and farmers we no longer allowed lines
to happen if something had to reach a
guest in the community it should be done
face-to-face house-to-house
person-to-person and that’s how we
discovered the teachers and the farmers
and the engineers and the musicians and
the carpenters because that’s who
refugees are there all of you with one
name refugee
together with the barsa foundation we
started a football program and every
single day the little boys and girls
have got a tip they get on buses they
leave the village and they head out to
local football pitches we’re local Greek
coaches who are employed by our program
work alongside young team leaders from
within the community who are trained the
boys and girls are taught the basic core
values of ambition and humility and
respect and effort so you’ve got boys
and girls different religions different
languages
all playing together with Greek kids we
built community kitchens in cadets at
bay and this reintroduced choice to the
guests and the residents of the village
they weren’t standing in line anymore
for food that we decided was good for
them now they could cook for their
families and for their neighbors and
what happens in a kitchen is you see
what home used to look like cultures are
exchanged stories are shared over pots
and pans my kitchen and your kitchen and
their kitchen together with because we
carry another organization that we work
so closely with we built a community
center within the community center a
myriad of activities happen but once a
week the village gets together for a
dance party it sounds trivial but it is
absolutely an energizing battery you
hear songs from all these countries and
at the end of every night they end in a
circle and they sing in Arabic and
Kurdish and Greek and Dutch even in
English and French and it creates
community where community was lost God
at that Bay is colorful and it’s
peaceful and it’s loving and we fight
daily to keep a consistent level of care
going against all the odds because we
see that the environment affects the
soul individuals become individuals and
they flourish again we believe in the
power of this change despite all of this
hard work lesbos is still in crisis and
the crisis is worse than it ever has
been and I never thought I would say
that the numbers are up the media
spotlight is gone the camps are
overflowing and there is no more room
for new people in God’s FA so on the
hills and
Mountains and the villages around the
island tents are coming up again we find
ourselves pivoting yet again between
providing emergency basic care and
digging our heels in not to compromise
an inch for the care we’re already
giving the average time a refugee spends
in a refugee camp around the world is
seventeen and a half years I want that
to sink in there are 65 million refugees
in the world
and the question I always get asked is
so what’s the solution well if I knew we
wouldn’t have this problem so what is
the next right thing
I believe that transforming the
environment has an immediate result and
can actually change the narrative and
possibly even the future of the people
that were serving
I want to reclaim community and kindness
from the chaos of this world I want to
remember that the individual makes up
the crowd no matter how big the crowd
and I want to help restore dignity to
people who have lost it because dignity
is the first step to healing and there
is a lot of healing that needs to be
done when you have lost everything that
is you and when you have lost your home
and all the things that identify who you
are when you have so much pain and so
much trauma then there is nothing more
human than to expect to land in a place
that is safe loving and lifting and so
we move towards these goals and small
but determined steps led by the heart
and powered by the idea of individuals
helping individuals and that for me is
the next right thing thank you you
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