Our Episode Transcripts are produced by Descript. Some words/dialogue may not be transcribed with 100% accuracy.
Ellie: [00:00:00] In this episode of Law Talks, Ellie and Katie interview volunteers on the Legal Empowerment Brigade who have volunteered with the non-profit Global Brigades Travel to Athens and work with lawyers and other volunteers to fundraise and spread awareness of the refugee situation and the legal context in Greece.
This episode starts with an interview with Alexandra, who is the brigade coordinator in Greece. Thank you so much for agreeing to be interviewed today. Uh, could you start by introducing yourself?
Alexandra: Yes. Hi. Uh, thanks for having me. I'm Alexandra and I'm a coordinator with the Global Brigades, uh, here in Greece.
I've been working with Global Brigades since December, and I'm basically a liaison between Global Brigades and the volunteers. [00:01:00]
Ellie: Thanks very much. To start us off, please could you briefly touch on the refugee situation in Greece?
Alexandra: Well, it started in 2014 and there was a big wave of the refugees that the influx picked in 2015.
It was mainly refugees from Syria at the time because of the war in Syria. It's considered the highest influx of refugees in Europe since the Second World War. And, um, Greece is in the middle of the three continents of Europe, Asia, and Africa. And it's the access country to the European Union. So refugees that want to enter the European Union, which is considered a safe continent, access through Greece and other countries.
Ellie: So could you give us a little bit of context about what life looks like for a refugee in Greece and on kind of another point what it's like to be an unaccompanied minor?
Alexandra: So it depends on where [00:02:00] the refugee comes from basically. The refugees that come, that don't come from, that arrive through sea or land border close to Turkey have to face difficult situations because, um, they don't have access.
They don't speak the language. There's a lack of employment opportunities. There's a lot of xenophobia and racism in the country. And there's the living in limbo that they can't plan. They can't plan their lives. And, um, there's, there's not a lot of support from the state or the European Union. Uh, specifically for minors.
A minor, a refugee, an accompanied minor is Someone who is, um, who is under eight and they don't have, they're travelling alone and they don't have a legal guardian or their parents to take care of them. So the state takes over and becomes their guardian basically.
Katie: Um, and what's the demographic of [00:03:00] these unaccompanied minors?
Alexandra: Well, 90 percent of them are boys, um, and they come from mainly from Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Iran, Congo, um, yes.
Ellie: And quite a big question to finish us off, but could you tell us a little bit about what the key challenges are that they face?
Alexandra: Um, because they do this trip alone or they, they, they started with their families but ended up alone.
They have been through enormous trauma and they have been prosecuted. They, some of them are abused. Some of them have lost their family. They are away from home. The immigration and asylum process is very confusing and very lengthy. And sometimes they get retraumatized for having to repeat their stories, to each authority and kind of get the validation that they are indeed in danger back home.[00:04:00]
There are disputes over age. Sometimes they have to go through, uh, medical tests to prove that they're underage, which can be both humiliating and traumatizing. Uh, there are mental health problems. There's social isolation, discrimination, racism. They don't know where they will end up. They don't know if they will stay in Greece or if they will be able to move further into Europe.
They don't have all those services that we are, all of us, privileged are used to have, like access to education, healthcare, lack of accommodation and support. And they don't have a lot of employment opportunities later in their future because there's not good integration support.
Ellie: Thank you very much.
Both Katie and I have volunteered with Go Brigades, and in September 2023, we both volunteered on a Legal Empowerment Brigade to Greece. The next recording you're going to hear is an audio clip I [00:05:00] took just after arriving back from Greece where I described the role of Chapter Leader and the responsibilities that I undertook in this role.
The role of Chapter Leader is essentially, like, a large part of your job and the work you need to do is before the Brigade. So It starts off with getting people signed up, so getting people interested, making sure they know it's an opportunity at the university that you're, um, advertising at, so that usually starts obviously like the very beginning of the year, sending out like emails, setting up social media, going to like a freshers fair and setting up a stall if that's possible.
For me, it was a little bit different because, um, last year at a new university. Um, so it took me kind of longer to set up and also it was a little bit different in the normal chapter leader, as there was no Global Brigade Society at Oxford, so I was kind of starting from scratch, whereas I think [00:06:00] most chapter leaders, or at least kind of, I suppose, like the plan for chapter leaders is that they'd be taking over from like a prior leader, um, And yeah, so chapter leader means that you're like specifically focused on a particular brigade.
And technically universities can run lots of brigades in one year. So like my focus was the Greece League Empowerment Brigade. And yeah, so what you're given, as soon as you're kind of officially the chapter leader, Quake Brigades gives you like a series of deadlines and dates. So you can kind of plan your year to, that kind of schedule.
So I knew when I needed to get the volunteers signed up by on the Go Brigades website. I know when I needed to get their like first initial, it's just like a hundred-pound donation goal just to like confirm that they're signed up. And then there's like a series of different schedules just to like make sure that you're on track to actually run the brigade.
So for example, there was a date when flights needed to be sorted and everyone had to have like signed their forms. And then there was a date [00:07:00] for. Fund donation goal, which was varying at the end of the year to give people kind of the maximum amount of time. So I'd say that's the kind of official role of the chapter leader, but I think it's also a lot more, you need to kind of keep people engaged because a lot of the time, it's like a very long, it's a very long timeline that people are working towards a really important, like empowering opportunity, but a lot of the kind of like 12 months, sometimes before, it's not like They get to experience it until the very, very end.
So like keeping people involved, giving people lots of information, helping fundraise is such a large part of it because when you're looking at a fundraising goal of sort of over a thousand pounds, it's quite like a daunting task. So keeping morale up and also just like suggesting lots of different fundraisers.
So I think. Being chapter leader, a massive thing that helped me was that I had like previously been part of a Global Brigades student [00:08:00] society at different universities, so at the University of Birmingham. So I did have experience and I also had experience being a committee member. So like I'd had a slight leadership role.
And then the chapter leader while actually on the brigade. So, in This role, you're kind of more there to be like a helping hand. So kind of like the first point of contact, if someone needs to, you do have a member from Global Brigades to actually like is with you the whole time and runs the brigade, uh, and kind of like make sure everyone's where they should be, but chapter leader will just be that kind of like helping facilitate and yeah, and making sure everyone's settled.
So for example, kind of when we were flying, there were lots of issues with the flight delays. It hit the same time as like all the air traffic control issues. So like. Reaching out, people would reach out to me and I would keep GoBrigades informed of any flight issues and making sure everyone was on track to the airport and also just helping with those general questions.
That's why chapter leaders, like if you can be someone that's gone on a brigade before, that's really [00:09:00] like helpful because you know, just even helpful things like clothing and what to expect, it's good to have that kind of. Advice. So yeah, so that's kind of the role of chapter leader and my aim is to be chapter leader again next year and also to take on the role of campus chairman, which I'll just talk a little bit about and it's a bit different because campus chairman is, it's more kind of a role-based at the university and it's overlooking all of the brigades at the university.
Mine probably this coming year will still only be one brigade, but for example, Global Brigades does like medical, it does like public health. Um, so yeah, that's kind of all these different things that we can do. So I'd previously been involved in like medical chapters of Go Brigades, which does make sense because I was doing a biomedical degree.
Uh, and I did some like kind of medical research on those chapters. So it was a really, really fantastic experience. But as those of you follow the podcast, I knew when I was studying [00:10:00] Biomed that I wanted to transition to law and with the aim of eventually becoming a lawyer. So what Go Brigades kind of.
Discussed or talked about their legal, uh, chapters. I was really, really interested. And then I became kind of particularly interested after I went to, well, virtually, I went to this Global Brigades conference when I was at Birmingham and they talked a lot about Greece and kind of the work that they're doing now, which is, I, Would say like slightly different to other bloat brigades, so for example like Honduras and Ghana, because Greece legally was very focused on, it's focused on refugees, compared to sort of like family law issues from like Honduras.
So I was really really interested in that, I'm interested in being a human rights lawyer, and I actually felt that the kind of legal and refugee contacts was something that I probably had quite a lot of lacking knowledge in, but I knew kind of, I suppose, just like socially, politically, it was something I was very interested in.
So, I actually received an email from Global Brigades talking about how they were trying to set up legal [00:11:00] empowerment chapters in Greece. So, I sort of, like, reached out for more information on this, and once I'd received the information, kind of the work we'd been doing, I wanted to, yeah, set it up at Oxford.
So that was kind of like the brainstorming idea. And yeah, finally, what was my favourite or my most, like, eye-opening moment of the week? I think it's really hard to pick. There was, the week was really intense. It kind of flew by, and there were so many, I think, Moments that I'll remember forever and definitely as a visit to the unaccompanied minors shelter was such a kind of such a moment where you can really sort of like feel the impact, um, of like what Global Brigades is trying to do and the importance of that work.
But I have a feeling a lot of people will talk about that because it was so memorable. So I also thought personally actually speaking and hearing from the Director of the Greek Council of [00:12:00] Refugees was something I just remember because Forever, I think, because it was such a great, like, I mean, he spoke so well, and it was so engaging, and he talked kind of about the whole, the whole sort of different issues, so the refugee context, and then, like, political problems with refugees, and then also the issues that lawyers face, uh, lawyers that are trying to, like, stand up for refugee rights, and, yeah, I think I just kind of, I went in and, um, To the brigade wanting to know more.
And I feel like from that talk, I learned so much. And yeah, I think he just really like stuck out to me on that week. So yeah, I think that's probably my most eye-opening moment of the week, but yeah, I would really implore anyone to get involved with boy brigades. It's a student-led charity and it's, yeah, really fantastic.
This next clip is of Lily Cotton who was also the chapter leader while we were out in Global Brigades volunteering in Greece [00:13:00] and she was the chapter leader of the Nottingham trend branch of our brigade and she shares her interesting insights into being chapter leader.
Lily: What does it mean to be a chapter lead?
Obviously, leadership is quite literally in the name, becoming a chapter lead, but I think at NTU particularly it was Completely from scratch there hadn't been a Global Brigades here at all So it was something that nobody had heard of and because I didn't know much on it myself It took a lot of like research researching on the backgrounds of it and where our fundraising money would go, etc So there was a lot to do in that respect and then getting this across to a range of different people because we'd be speaking to say the dean of the law school to try and Have like their help with encouraging it and therefore I'm persuading them that it's a good thing And then when I'm trying to network across the students I'm trying to engage them and make it seem like an exciting thing [00:14:00] for them and there were different approaches as to why we started it.
So obviously a huge huge thing is the human rights that we were learning about and the fact that we'd be making a difference, but also building our legal work experience and we had to use that as quite a selling point as well. So there was multitude of things that I had to get across and in different ways to, different personalities and temperaments and I think making other people as excited for something as you are and really trying to engage them takes a whole nother type of communication skills and organization is obviously a huge key thing I think as Ellie knows it I think she done it pretty much from scratch with the legal empowerment program as well and it took a lot to get everyone together especially when we well I particularly didn't know much about the program myself from the start so it took a lot to organize all of these students together and Everyone needed to have the same end goal and [00:15:00] obviously some people weren't as keen for it as others were and so it was trying to find this middle ground and It took a lot of behind the scenes work that I think not many people realize but I think it built on my confidence more than anything because there was times where i'd have to a lot of the Girls that came on the program with me, I was previously, had good friendships and built good relationships with through the uni.
So I think it took a whole different kind of confidence to be able to tell people that you're in a good relationship with, they're all on par, we were all law students. Pretty much this time around we were all final-year students because of how late we tried to bring it into the university. It was very hard to get it across to other networks but I think where I'm going with this is that it took a lot of confidence to be able to tell people that I've got good relationships with what to do basically and to be able [00:16:00] to stern with them because there were times where like I had people had to have a push and we got there in the end but it was the confidence in approaching that situation, I think, and that's the biggest thing about leadership.
You're going to have good relationships with people and bad ones. And so I think this has been a huge test for me on getting the balance with that. And it just became so rewarding in the end when we're organizing all, all these students who are my friends that also have other priorities. and I am aware of this and want them to do well in their final year of the law degree, but it takes a lot of patience and the reward that I've got from seeing these girls who've taken part in the brigade and learning all these new lessons and you can just see and we've spoken so many times about the literal growth that this whole brigade has given us and it's, we've made so many connections with The pair of you two and everyone across the Oxford Brigade and genuinely [00:17:00] probably friends for a long time now and to see that they've gained so much just from this like little idea from hearing your podcast it's obviously huge to me and it just makes it all that much more rewarding and worth it.
What was my most eye-opening thing about the brigade? I think you can learn all about the refugee crisis. I'm doing speech marks I know you can't see that but it's what the gentleman who was from the Greek Council for Refugees said because I think there's a lot that we don't know. And there's a lot that we couldn't have read beforehand, but we found out firsthand.
And I think it was these things that really opened our eyes. I didn't come in knowing a lot about human rights. It wasn't even really something I wanted to go down, but I have a strong passion for giving back to the community. And this was the first legal Charity, I'd seen that does exactly that whilst [00:18:00] building work experience.
But I've also, I can engage in so many conversations about the refugee crisis as they like to call it. And now I used to, I used to be engaged with it a lot, but I think now it's opened my eyes to, you know, The behind the scenes that we didn't even know. And the brigade has brought all of this to life for me.
I think we've had, we had sessions and talks about the mistreatment of refugees and the pushbacks and how difficult it is to be seeking asylum in Greece, but to actually be able to see the environments that they work in when they do manage to get refugee status was incredible. And it just gives that whole other background to it.
And I think. A big thing for all of us was that we would sit and we'd play games with, we went to visit an unaccompanied minors shelter and many shelters. And there'd be the refugees would be [00:19:00] there playing Uno or playing cards, which we would just be previously doing ourselves. And it's amazing to think these sorts of things that universally make everyone happy.
And they've had such hardship all of their life and have fought for so much yet. They also have these simple pleasures that we do. And I've said before about how, when we were playing, there was a moment we were, Nina was playing the guitar and we were all singing and dancing in our shelter for unaccompanied minors.
And we all felt the same sort of happiness as these young refugees did, and it was just an incredible feeling that they, they were almost, they, they weren't even really aware of their hardships, but they were the most polite, clever, and kindest children, [00:20:00] and we could, we got that just from, we had, there was a language barrier, and we got that just from them.
The way they present themselves. And I think it takes a lot to be able to show what an amazing person you are, especially as a child, just for the way that you carry yourself. And I think for this to show for these. that have gone through so much at such a young time. It definitely opened mine. And I think I can speak on behalf of all the girls from NTU that came on this brigade with me to not take anything for granted because they haven't.
And it really does. It wakes you up and makes you feel so grateful. And I think we learn a lot of things on this brigade. We learn how to present ourselves in cases and the depths of the human rights out there in Greece. But I think The biggest thing I learned from it was this. And to just not take the privileges that we have for [00:21:00] granted.
For example, all of us came in our university groups and we didn't even consider the fact that university and the education that we have has come to us quite easily, which is something that they haven't and may not ever receive. And it just, it really does wake you up and make you a lot more grateful.
What made me start Global Brigades? As you guys know, honestly, I listened to your podcast and this genuinely must sound like I'm lying now and like you paid me to say this but, it was the weirdest irony that it was your podcast that I listened to talking about Global Brigades and it ended up that we got to meet you guys and I was almost fangirling when I first met you because everybody who asked me I would say about your podcast and that is the reason why I set it up. But I think it was this that drew me in as I previously spoke about [00:22:00] is to be able to give back to communities, particularly under-resourced communities like those that we were with for the week, but also building up the legal experience.
And this just felt like the perfect opportunity to do both. And on top of this, a big thing for me was to be able to provide my peers with this opportunity, because At NTU, obviously we have, it's an amazing law school. There is absolutely no shade on that. They really have helped us a lot, but I think we weren't very aware as students going through our first year in COVID-19, and it was all online.
And our second year, I think, was hybrid, but a lot of it was online. We weren't able to enjoy and take advantage of the employment sector that we have within our uni. And we probably weren't even really aware of it at the time. And so we haven't really been able to build up our legal [00:23:00] work experience. And we weren't even very aware of what a training contract was, to be honest.
So obviously now we do, but it almost kind of felt like it came to us a bit late and I didn't want that to be the case for first years that start at NTU and Nottingham Law School. Because to get all of this, early and to be able to become aware of training contracts and building a work experience for that is very important and it's something that I wish I'd done sooner.
So as much as I wanted to start this legal brigade to do good for under-resourced communities, I also wanted to do it to do good for at-home as well as first-year students at Nottingham Trent University. We realized from the Brigades that, obviously it's kind of two different worlds, Oxford and Nottingham Trent, but there was, it was like a beautiful irony with it because we all got along so well and [00:24:00] we, All were very much the same characters and it made up I think me and the girls from Nottingham Trent.
We all said that it made us more excited to work in a legal workplace because we're not worried anymore about working around people from Oxford because we were all human and I think we all realised that and we all had different backgrounds but got along incredibly and like I said genuinely made friends for life so yeah.
It was important for me that I could try and give back and give first, second years or anybody in Nottingham Law School the opportunities to be able to put themselves forward in training contracts and so that they don't feel like they are Less than which by the way at no point we ever felt on this brigade You guys were amazing as I've said many a time but trying to avoid that for Students at Nottingham law school as well also had a [00:25:00] big part of my decision on starting this out. Also, I'd done law with criminology, I didn't do a straight law degree, so I didn't have a lot of chosen legal modules that I could explore what I wanted to go down, and what area of law I knew I wanted to go, I think like commercial rather than criminal, but I didn't have anything or a speciality and I kind of wanted to explore this.
I, it's always a question when I say I want to be a lawyer, everybody asks what route I want to go down. And I didn't ever really have an answer. So I kind of had to explore myself for these different areas of law and human rights did come up because it's something I'm passionate about. Besides the law to be able to blend the two was obviously a big thing.
And I don't, I didn't have the opportunity to study because of law with criminology, a human rights module. And honestly, I couldn't tell you whether Nottingham Trent University offers it, um, as the straight law degree, it's probably better to check with one of [00:26:00] the girls for that, but it's just a good way.
Now, if they don't offer human rights, then it's a good opportunity to. Learn about it through extracurriculars. And, like I said previously, I know it's quite a cliche, but I've always promised myself that no matter what line of work I go down, I want to make a difference and give back to the community because I have, I've had quite a privileged upbringing and I've realized that more so after this brigade, how lucky I've been.
So to be able to make a difference for those who don't was a privilege. My main motivation for setting up the brigade and for us bringing it into next, well this academic year as well, I think we've become a lot more motivated to do so after this Global Brigades, so I can only thank them and I'm sure you both agree they ran it incredibly and it's only made us want to do more and I think all of us [00:27:00] came from it.
With that same mindset. So no regrets at all in all the work that I put in to set this up because I think it couldn't have gone more successful, even if I do say so myself. And a huge thank you to you guys, because I feel we have learned a lot from each other as much as we have from the talks that we had.
I think we've all learned a lot about ourselves from this experience and it's just, really important to talk about. I think I've heard, when you hear about Global Brigades, we don't hear this. And I don't think, I guess they don't really usually mix universities, but it was an incredible experience. And I feel I've learned more from this than most things that I've got, most experiences that I've done.
So I would definitely recommend it to anybody who is looking to build on their work experience while giving back to the community. There's, I couldn't think of a better way to do it.
Ellie: The next few clips are. who came on [00:28:00] the Legal Empowerment Brigades to Greece, and they talk about their experiences, and they are both Volunteers from the University of Oxford and Nottingham Trent University.
Meranie: For me, this brigade was a chance to finally have the opportunity to do something tangible about the range of issues facing refugees arriving in Europe. Where I live, there are a lot of asylum seekers and refugees from Afghanistan whom I'd supported indirectly before through clothing and food donations, but I'd never had the opportunity to marry my legal skills and interest in international human rights law with helping these communities.
The devastating migrant boat shipwreck in Pylos had also occurred just before I discovered this volunteering initiative. And I think that event solidified my resolve to go out and actually do something. So once I came across Global Brigades, I immediately knew it was something I had to do to make myself better informed about the socio political and legal refugee context in Greece.
But most importantly, to help out wherever I could. My most special [00:29:00] moment on this trip was delivering a human rights workshop to children at an unaccompanied minors shelter. It was so beautiful to see their youthful joy and capacity to still smile and play and dream big despite their unfortunate circumstances, which it's easy to think would dampen their spirits.
The experience overall was a real reminder to me to stay faithful and keep doing whatever I can to make a difference to at least one person's life. Often I think you can become frustrated, By the fact that you can't change the legal or political system overnight or find a panacea to remedy the unnecessarily hostile climate refugees and migrants find themselves in when arriving in certain European countries.
This is something I raised with the director of the Greek Council for Refugees. And if there's one thing that shifted my perspective on this trip, it was his reply. He said that despite the feelings of helplessness and irritation that may crop up when working in this field because as people passionate about doing good for others, we naturally [00:30:00] want to fix what's broken in the world.
What it is, in the end, that keeps you hopeful and energized in the fight is seeing the difference you make to one person's life at a time. After my experience at the shelter, and meeting other refugees who had been supported by Global Brigades, I can say that this outlook truly resonated with me.
Overall, I learned so much on this trip and really hope to do something like this again in future.
Jay: As an undergraduate law student coming into my second year, there was a lot of legal theory and content that I learned in class that I was quite eager to put to practical use in any way I could. When the opportunity to be part of a legal empowerment brigade came up, I knew that this was something that I would definitely be interested in.
The chance to work with unaccompanied minors, to learn more about the refugee crisis in Europe, and to do our part, no matter how small, in helping to resolve some of these issues was something that I felt appealed to me significantly, because it would give me a chance to put what I had learned into practical use.[00:31:00]
Over the course of the trip, we engaged in a multitude of different activities. including but not limited to a debate on an ongoing refugee migrant issue, um, obviously working with the unaccompanied minors themselves at the shelters and also meeting with non-government organisations and other bodies aimed at helping refugees in Greece to learn more about the situation and to propose plans and bounce ideas off one another.
While all these activities contributed significantly to what was a fantastic experience for all of us, I have to say that for me personally, the most enjoyable and memorable part of the trip was definitely working with the children at the shelter. It was great to interact with these kids, to find out about their hopes, their dreams, and their lives to date.
Um, while we might have formed a really small part of their lives, given that we were only there for about a week, I feel that I personally learned so much from them, and I was glad to be able to do what I could in teaching them about their human rights, and about, and about giving them some kind of idea of what they could expect from their future.
Amy: I [00:32:00] think the immediate thing that jumps out as most memorable is the visit to the shelter for unaccompanied minors because I think it just really helped humanize all the discussions we'd been having up to that point. We'd gone there to like give presentations on children's rights but I think what was more impactful was just being able to get to know the children and spend an afternoon with them like playing games and having some respite and just chatting to them and learning their stories.
We also got to visit a shelter for women and children and I think after a lot of the discussions we had had about the mistreatment of refugees and asylum seekers, it was just really encouraging and eye-opening to see a safe space being provided for them. I think the biggest takeaway for me from the experience was how much it deepened and developed my understanding of the situation that is going on in Greece in relation to refugees and asylum seekers.
I think I was really unaware of just how big of a problem there was over there. Um, I [00:33:00] particularly found the opportunity, um, to debate a recent case particularly useful in being able to expand my knowledge in this area. I think I was somewhat unaware of pushbacks. Um, I knew about them as a concept, but I didn't have the full picture.
So it was really insightful being able to like work and understand and learn a case and then have to debate it, sort of moot about it. because it really like pushed my knowledge. It was just so insightful learning about just how involved the Greek authorities seem to be in the treatment of the individuals being affected by it and how they are treated just because they're trying to reach safety.
I feel I also learned a lot about the terminology that's used in relation to these sorts of issues. Like, I wasn't really, aware of sort of how misleading it can be to talk about a refugee crisis in this way when there's not really a problem that was ever sort of unprecedented or something that like couldn't be foreseen.
Ellie: Thank you for listening to this episode [00:34:00] about Global Brigades, we hope you found it insightful. If you'd like to get involved in the charity please check our episode description and follow either the website or the signup link.
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