Student from Grimsby raising awareness in Serbia to thousands of social media followers
A university student recently took a month-long volunteering trip to help and educate himself on the difficult conditions in Serbia’s refugee crisis.
20-year-old, Rob Dawley, who lives of Cleethorpes Road, is a first-year student studying Football Business & Media at UCFB in Manchester.
Working with the charity, Collective Aid, between March 7th to April 9th he assisted thousands of refugees who are hoping to seek asylum in Europe by ensuring they have support and access to hygiene facilities and clean clothes.
Based on the border of Serbia’s capital, Belgrade, Rob shared his time there, showing the city and the little-known humanitarian crisis on his Snapchat account. Having received 15,000, views he hopes this growing platform will give him a chance to continue to share and inspire about the help needed out there.
He said: “It’s off the beaten track, it is quite poor, and I don’t think people realise how poor sometimes.
“I thought you’re in Serbia, in the middle of know where, everyone is at home in lockdown and furloughed and I thought it will cheer a couple of people up and it went boom, I had 1000 adds, 15,000 views and 500 messages.”
Many of the refugees are from middle east conflict zones hoping to seek asylum in the European Union and use Serbia as their final stop-off.
UNHCR reported that in 2020 alone, 24,250 new refugees and migrants arrived In Serbia.
Rob described his work there as “Helping them in terms of support and basic amenities for them to get to their next destination.”
Rob said: “We were assisting people that were trying to get a better life really. We had something called a WASH centre in the city centre where they would come and get showers and we would do their laundry.”
The WASH centre, standing for ‘Water and sanitation for health’ provides a place for those sleeping rough or have no access to hygiene facilities, whilst also allowing volunteers to connect and offer any support needed to them.
“I also took part in something called the Outreach programme which is where we would walk around the city telling refugees what we do and handing out shower tickets.”
Rob took part in this opportunity to help those living entirely different lives to most, in the hope to appreciate the simple things many take for granted. This eye-opening experience for him was chosen with the main reason being to help others.
Although loving his time there and having the chance to turn his love for travel into humanitarian aid work, it was mentally tough for him.
He said: “I think it was more mentally challenging than it was physically, the mental side of it was difficult. Serbia was my 17th country in 2 years, I have seen a lot and I have done a lot. Serbia was tough it was a tough tough test for anyone, mentally people don’t realise.”
Many refugees struggle to find hope of improvement and therefore inevitable face psychological distress.
With many also not trusting Serbia’s system, staying on the streets presents them with more danger and risks.
Receiving such a positive response Rob hopes to document more of his volunteering trips claiming, “I’m a man of the people.”
