Cribs International

Hello lovely group.

Happy 218th Wednesday,

We always try to respond as quickly as possible to some nominations and as soon as today’s came in, all of us knew we wanted to help this family immediately. The nomination was sent into us by our member Julie after a support request from the director of CRIBS International and it speaks for itself.

We are honoured we can help because of YOU all our amazing members, Thank You. I am writing on behalf of Mary* and her family. They are from Congo. They arrived in Kos in 2019 with their two girls, today 10 and 6. They could not bear the camp and left for Athens hoping it would be better. They spent many months sleeping in benches, parks and churches. When Mary realised she was pregnant she really didn't know what to do. Mary occasionally did hair braiding in exchange for a place to sleep or food for the girls. When she came to Cribs, we took her for a check-up at the hospital . Immediately, Mary had an antenatal check and it was noted she had very high blood pressure. She was taken urgently into theatre and baby E was born by caesarean section. After being taken off to SCBU, CRIBS advocated for mum to have a breast pump and be able to feed her own daughter. Daphne, our worker put in many hours on the phone to the Greek maternity hospital, arguing and advocating for Mary to see her baby and be allowed to feed her. Success! They came home together after 8 days and started to settle into their flat with dad and two sisters, who were delighted to see their baby sister and have their mum back. But then mum’s blood pressure went back up and she was readmitted to hospital on Tuesday. Further covid screenings, negotiating with staff and advocating for mum, Daphne was able to ensure Mary could pump and maintain her milk supply. Thankfully she has no pre-eclampsia but her pressure is still high, needs close monitoring and many follow up visits. She will be on medication for some time and needs to monitor her blood pressure three times a day needing a quality blood pressure machine. Housing Mary and her family costs approximately 728 euros a month. The family have no cashcard and will never have one, following Greece’s recent decision to disallow any form of support for families not in their housing which is mainly in camps. We also are covering taxi fares to the hospital and back which averages at 10 euros per trip. We would be most grateful if you could support us in any way to help Mary and her family. *name changed for anonymity. Thank you