Raul Espinoza Izquierdo

When arriving here, the contact with the refugees touches our souls. For me, it is the first time that I ever worked with War Refugees and you can’t stay indifferent while witnessing this global problem so close to you. All my EREC’s colleagues are firemen like me with experience in rescue, human relationships and suffering… In this case the questions we ask ourselves are bigger: why our government does nothing? Why do we sell weapons to the killers? Why we’re lied to and cheated through the TV coverage? And in conclusion, what are we doing wrong as Humanity?

My name is Raul Espinoza Izquierdo, I’m 39 years old. I was born in Barcelona &  work as a fireman for the town hall.

I’m a member of the ONG “Accion Solidaria y Logistica” and we work here in Idomeni as a Catalan team of Rescue & Emergency workers. The project that we’re developing here is a weekly distribution of fresh fruits and vegetables to all the refugees in Idomeni. Besides this project, we have others like:   A school in BP, Firming-up the Emergency Plan for Volunteers of EKO, Putting lights all over the dark regions of Idomeni, Delivering Food for children in the different settlements, Bringing water to Praxis, Bringing fruit to the Idomeni Cultural Centre in order to distribute to all the pupils in the Centre, And many new projects that we’re developing daily.

Last year I worked in Nepal after the earthquake as an EREC member. Due to logistic concerns, in April this year I got involved in the emergency situation in Idomeni. I was there for 3 intensive weeks. When I returned to Barcelona we started to work in a Coordination Team. Nowadays we’re busier here than in Idomeni and very happy that our projects are going on! The fact that we’re improving the coordination is helping us to realize more  projects at a higher standard.

Our main idea is trying to bring Dignity to the refugees. Europe and all the members of the EU (Europeen Union) are ignoring the problems caused by the Syrian war, that in my humble opinion could be called the 3rd World War because so many countries are involved in it and we will all suffer.
What is happening to us, (as Europeens citizens) is that the refugees of this war are coming to our countries and the ordinary people are trying to help and unfortunately the governments of our counties are refusing to help. Sad but True.

When arriving here, the contact with the refugees touches our souls. For me, it is the first time that I ever worked with War Refugees and you can’t stay indifferent while witnessing this global problem so close to you. All my EREC’s colleagues are firemen like me with experience in rescue, human relationships and suffering… In this case the questions we ask ourselves are bigger: why our government does nothing? Why do we sell weapons to the killers? Why we’re lied to and cheated through the TV coverage? And in conclusion, what are we doing wrong as Humanity?

We received such positive energy from the refugees! You realize that they are people like you, with families and lives similar to yours… Among them there are Professors, musicians, engineers.

I keep Mohamed, a System Engineer from Syria, as a friend. He had to escape from his own country in order not to get killed, to search for a better and safer  place to live without fearing about who’s coming to kill him or bomb his city. Mohammed helped us to solidify the EREC’s project, he fought and valued what we’ve been doing together with many volunteers that came from different countries and joined our project. We cried a lot everyday. By nature,  Humans are generous. We react when we see  people suffering. This I learned from the teammates I worked everyday while being in contact with the refugees or the citizens in Barcelona.

I got support from my family, my life partner, my mother, brother and friends… All of them exchange energies with me and help me to explain what I experienced here in Idomeni. The emotional charge is so heavy that you look for techniques in order to go on with your daily real life, the life in your city, with your real people. A reality that is so different from other people’s reality in this planet – that unfortunately is our toughest challenge…

We’re trying to bring our grain of sand, a project that I said before, feeds the refugees and gives them a bit of Dignity in their lives.
I’m looking for a bigger result: to raise the consciousness of all the human beings that we approach, to live in a better world.