Norwegian Air to send emergency supplies to the refugees in Greece

Norwegian pilot ships aid to refugees

Thanks to the immense engagement from pilot Wenche Drevland, Norwegian will fly emergency aid to refugees in Greece. “We are so grateful that Norwegian decided to help,” says Drevland.

Wenche Drevland is a pilot at Norwegian’s OSL base, and after seeing and hearing a lot about the refugee disaster around the Mediterranean, she decided to do something about it.

“My sister Trude Jacobsen started the Facebook group ‘A drop in the ocean’ (Dråpen i havet) to collect clothes and other necessities to help refugees in Greece. The group has received tremendous support, and needed help to ship all the donations. What my sister saw in Greece and the admirable work she is doing really inspired me to take action,” says Drevland.

Norwegian donates cargo spaceAs a pilot, Drevland decided to get in touch with her colleagues at Norwegian.

“The situation for refugees in Greece is acute and I wanted to help. I made some phone calls to my colleagues at Norwegian, and today they finally said yes to ship clothes, shoes, trolleys and other emergency aid to Athens. We are incredibly grateful,” says Drevland.

Making a differenceFrom Athens the sisters will have the cargo shipped to different places in Greece. One of those places is Lesvos, where a lot of the refugees come ashore after fleeing from Syria, Afghanistan and other countries.

“No help is given to the refugees when they come ashore and when they finally get to the refugee camps, they are overcrowded. With help from Norwegian we can maybe make their lives a little bit easier,” says Drevland.

When Red Nose spoke to Drevland, she was in the basement of Norwegian’s headquarters at Fornebu, packing trolleys.

“When the refugees get to Lesvos, wet and exhausted, they have to walk 70 kilometres to register as a refugee. These trolleys have been left behind by passengers and collected by Norwegian’s crew. Now we are flying them to Greece to

mothers and children who really need them, hoping the trolleys will make their long walk a little easier. Norwegian will have a big part in making that happen and really help make a difference,” says Drevland.

Would you like to help too? Norwegian has a partnership with UNICEF, which works hard to minimize the impact of the crisis on children. Click here if you would like to donate to UNICEF.