Life jackets are a poignant symbol of the refugee crisis in Greece. Thousands of them which had been abandoned on the beaches of Lesbos are now giving life to a new project which will help the people who once wore the vests while also addressing a huge environmental problem.

Jai Mexis and his partner Irene Psifidi returned home to Greece after university in the UK with a desire to help and have founded:“Odyssea“https://www.facebook.com/Odyssea-1668161903422616/. It is an NGO which aims to find a long term solution to the thousands of abandoned life jackets.

“The whole story started very spontaneously, when I visited Lesbos. I tried to find a solution to the environmental problem. It was more of an experiment. An attempt to show that young Greeks can return to their country, that we can create something, even from garbage,” explained Jai Mexis.

The beaches of Lesbos are where thousands of refugees first land. Their life jackets are left abandoned in the sand. In Turkey the vests c