This picture was taken a year ago on the island of Lesvos in Greece. Together with the following text it was published by journalist and local Scout Leader Stratis Balaskas on the website of the Greek news agency he works for. A year later, the situation on Lesvos, Chios, Kos, other islands and mainland Greece is still far from what we would like it to see. And to this day local Scouts are involved in numerous activities supporting refugees across the country. The story could well describe some action taken place yesterday.

“Why are you doing this? Why are you, in your twenties, still children, working so hard, for so many hours for people you do not know and who you will probably never see again? Why, on earth, are you doing this?”, you asked. All of them smiled. “Because!”, they answered. And then they added: “And you, why do you not do it?”

Alcestis from Ierapetra, Nikoleta from Piraeus, Dimitra from Nea Smyrni, and Panagiotis from Mytilene: young students, almost children, all four of them, studying at the University of the Aegean.

The other day, I met them outside Mytilene, at Kara Tepe refugee camp. With no complain, they were lost in the desperate crowd. But still, you could distinguish them, because they worked systematically. They knew what to do, just by exchanging glances. They were working and they were smiling. To each other, to everyone around them.

You could distinguish them because they were wearing a blue scarf. And because they were singing. At least, one of them was.

“What are you singing”, you asked her. “A song”, she replied. “Okay, a song. But which one?”, you asked again. “One of our songs. It says that if you are wearing a scarf in the colour the sky is wearing, then you should have the same light in your eyes”.

That evening, in the refugee camp, a group of Greek Scouts fed hundreds of people, and they helped others queuing to register their despair. They carried things, smiled, lifted other things, sung, and caressed only God knows how many children.

And their eyes were, always, shining in the blue of the sky, in the same blue as their scarves, in the same blue of their song.

“Why are you doing this? Why are you, in your twenties, still children, working so hard, for so many hours for people you do not know and who you will probably never see again? Why, on earth, are you doing this?”, you asked.

They smiled, all of them. “Because!”, they answered. And then they added: “And you, why do you not do it?”

Good morning Kemal. This world may change, after all. Good morning. (*)

(*)
The title of this story is a slight alteration of a line in a famous song by Greek singer and songwriter Manos Hajidakis: “Kemal”
listen to this song in English: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9oxwENvNeJ4
or in Greek: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-f-vQX942I