WHO WE ARE
The Beginnings (Lesbos)
If the image of little Alan Kurdi also moved you, you are one of us.
Our first mission: Lesbos
By September 2015, we had been lifeguarding for years. But the photograph of little Alan Kurdi drowned on a beach prompted us to travel urgently to Lesbos to help hundreds of Syrian refugees and those from other countries like Afghanistan and Iraq fleeing wars and conflicts.
We arrived on the Greek coast with €15,000 of our own money. We invested it in rescue work for a month. We managed to protect more than 20 boats a day, with about 60 people on each one, including the elderly and children. When we set out on the trip, we didn’t expect to receive donations, but after that, they started arriving.
What did we achieve?
From September 2015 to March 2016, the date of the agreement between the European Union and Türkiye to cut off the Lesbos migration route, we achieved:
143.358
people helped to reach the coast
10.273
people rescued adrift
9.067
people rescued on the cliffs
475
people rescued from the water at high risk of drowning.
We expand our radius of action
With the agreement between Europe and Turkey, the migration route through Lesbos was closed. This led to new, longer and more dangerous routes becoming established in the Mediterranean. Therefore, given the lack of action from official sources, we decided to expand our base to the Central Mediterranean. To date, we have saved more than 70,000 lives in different parts of the world.