GREECE

2015 | During the refugee crisis in Europe, I felt pretty powerless watching the news about the situation. I really believed there wasn’t anything I could personally do, but with the motivation from my sister and advice from an online friend, I went to Greece from the years 2015-2018 to help as a volunteer.
I co-founded a non-profit organization dedicated to helping refugees in Greece. I focused on creating the branding, and spearheaded crowdfunding for the organization to cover food and clothing donations for camps of 16,000 refugees. We then established a 5 year contract and MOU with a UAE NGO to fund a 7 story community center in Athens.

Before creating our NGO, I first started out as a volunteer on a kitchen team, used my graphic design skills to help translate using infographics, and eventually brought out my skill in filmmaking to help make documentaries to spread awareness.
As an artist, I had always thought not majoring in medicine would mean I’d be useless if our plane crashed and we ended up on a remote island - what use would my art skills be then? But then I realized, being on this Greek island without resources or anything, that I could actually use all the skills I had and bring some benefit to our community. This topic inspired me to give a wide range of public talks in schools/universities, discussing how anyone could bring their own unique skillsets to help others.