The Essentials: doTERRA Essential Oils 72-Hour Emergency Hygiene Kits

A few days ago, a group came into the Moria Refugee Camp's protected zone, specifically to the sections of unaccompanied minor boys, to teach about dental hygiene. We were told to prepare for a dentist to come in who was going to help all of the boys. We were expecting dental check ups and cleanings, and considering the fact that there are only 4 or 5 dentists working in the entire refugee camp of over 7,000 people, dental care is a big gap and the boys were extremely lucky to receive this special care. However, when the dental group came in, they gathered a few of the boys together, pulled out a large dental study model (aka huge dentures) and showed the boys how to brush their teeth. As I was leaving the camp that day, one of our refugee interns, Mohammad from Iraq, chuckled and said "I don't know why they are wasting their time. All of these boys know how to brush their teeth. Most of them are Muslim. We wash our selves 5 times a day, and they think we don't know how to be clean?" 

Refugee crisis relief is not like your average natural disaster relief or even your average community development for sustainable poverty relief. The people here come from all different backgrounds: rich, poor, middle class, educated, teachers, doctors, farmers, kids, adults, families, single representatives of families, fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, children. Although these characteristics describe pretty much anyone and everyone, that is the point. Anyone can be a refugee. These people don't need to be told how to brush their teeth, they need a tooth brush. They don't need to be taught how to wash their hair, they need shampoo and sometimes lice shampoo, not because they are dirty but because there are 7,015 people packed into this refugee camp that has a capacity of just around 2,000, and there is roughly 1 toilet/shower for every 70 people. They don't need to be taught how to be clean, they need to be given the tools to practice the good hygiene techniques they already know. 

This is one of our volunteers, Bailee, with a little girl from Section C, the protected section for vulnerable single women and single women with children in Moria Refugee Camp. She wouldn't let go of Bailee for almost half an hour after we distributed some of the doTERRA hygiene kits! 

Now of course, we all could use a reminder that we should brush for 2 minutes instead of 30 seconds, but a reminder is different than being taught like you never knew in the first place. 

That is why, when doTERRA Essential Oils donated suitcases full of hygiene kits to the HELP International Refugee Crisis Relief team here in Lesvos, Greece, we wanted to do more than just remind people what they already knew. We wanted to give them the tools in the kit, provided by doTERRA, and teach them some simple new tools to help them practice better physical and mental self-care in place where it is difficult to find a second alone or even peace within your own mind. 

Since our team here works with an entire protected zone of vulnerable women (single women, and single women with children) in Moria Refugee Camp, and since we work with The Humanity Team's women and children's community center just down the street from the camp, we could not think of anyone who deserved and needed these incredible hygiene kits more than these women. Including the protected zone for women and the female refugee employees at The Humanity Team's community center, we distributed 265 hygiene kits to 265 very excited women. But first, of course, we taught a class and held some activities to talk about self-care, in order to instruct the women on how best to use everything in the hygiene kits AND understand how to handle stress and balance their physical and mental health, taking hygiene and self-care to a whole new level. 

I love this woman! When I asked if I could take her picture she immediately grabbed her kit and started modeling it up right on her top bunk next to all of her belongings. 

This is the women and children's community center. This room is for nursing mothers, pregnant women, and older women to come and relax. There are no men allowed so they can even take off their hijabs if they want to. The blankets and quilts on the walls were all made by women who come to the center. 

We started out our class with teaching a simple deep breathing technique to relax the mind. 3 minutes of deep breaths, in through the nose, out through the mouth, clearing the mind of all thoughts. The women, tired of the craziness of the camp, did not need to be asked twice to lay down and relax their minds, they were all over it! 

Then we moved to an object lesson about the relationship between our physical and mental health and why self-care is important. We held up an empty water bottle as a representation of our bodies. Then we filled it to the brim with water, representing all of our stressors, emotions, and feelings, and how we can handle a certain amount of mental/emotional stress when we are physically health. Then we crumpled up the water bottle and let the water overflow, representing how when we do not care for ourselves physically, we are mentally less able to handle our emotions and challenges. Likewise, if we are physically healthy but do not care for ourselves mentally and emotionally, we will overflow like a water bottle with too much water poured into it. So to keep our physical and mental selves in tip top shape, we taught some self-care techniques as we went through each item in the hygiene kits. 

We had two large posters of a traced body and we handed out markers so the women could mark where they feel their stress the most. Everyone jumped up and marked places like the back, shoulders, neck, head, temples, and eyes. One of our volunteers then led a relaxing 5 minute meditation session where you self-assess where you are feeling pain or feeling tense from stress and breathe the pain out, tightening and relaxing different muscles until all of the tension is gone. The women loved pushing the stress right out their finger tips! 

Then we passed around some melaleuca oil and talked about all the different uses of it that would benefit them, like putting it in their shampoo to avoid lice, spraying a few drops diluted in water to disinfect mattresses, blankets, and pillows, treating small outbreaks of acne and clearing up skin and scars, and much more! Lastly, we demonstrated how to do the doTERRA aroma touch hand massage and encouraged them to help each other relax by doing aroma touch massages together.

When we finally finished, the women were so excited to get their packet that some of them even clapped and danced when they received it! Even though a few simple meditation and breathing techniques may not seem as important as the hygiene kit itself, knowing how to use the tools you are given is as essential as the tools themselves. And everyone needs the essentials of self-care!