Dirty Girls operates in Greece using the paid services of three huge commercial laundries located in Lesvos, Athens and Thessaloniki.
We wash, (to hospital standards), blankets, sleeping bags and other materials so that they can be reused, rather than the present practices of International Non Government Organisations (INGOs) – the cavalier trashing of all materials and replacement with new ones.
The clean materials go back to the refugees for reuse. As well as giving the blankets to people in Greece, we have sent 10,000 blankets to Serbia.
So far we have saved over 500 tons of material from landfill.
We have saved UNHCR, who distribute the new blankets, over a million euros because they haven't had to pay for replacement blankets when we wash them.
In the process we have created employment for local Greek people.
At the peak of refugee arrivals on Lesvos we also washed the drenched clothes of people arriving by sea. At that time we had 4x300kilo washing machines working 24/7. Now that people are trapped in Greece, rather than moving along in a few days, we supply washing powder so that people can keep and wash their own clothes.