Pinoys in Austrian show their support for

refugees travelling through Vienna en route to

Germany
VIENNA – Since the beginning of the flow of refugees and migrants in Austria, hundreds
of Austrian citizens flock to Vienna's Westbahnhof train station to offer water and food to
Syrian refugees, helping them before boarding trains to Salzburg or to Munich in
southern Germany. During the weekend, the Circulo Caviteno, an active Filipino Group in
Vienna volunteered to distribute food and water to the newly arrived refugees at the
Westbahnhof railstation.

The Pinoy volunteers are very glad that they were able to do something to ease the burdens of
the refugees, who have been traveling so long and must be very hungry.

“We felt we had to do something,” Elmer Blanco of the Circulo Caviteno said in his
Facebook wall. . “It’s a small thing but maybe it will help.”

The Vienna International Center Club Filipino under the leadership of its President
Ms. Marizel Rojas likewise initiated September 10, 2015   Sing and Dance for a
Cause, a fund raising event for the refugees. A number of Filipinos and Austrian
friends attended the event.

Fr. Conrado Estafia of the Filipino Catholic Chaplaincy (FCC) Vienna, Austria reported that the were able to
give hygiene articles and cash donations to the Caritas Warehouse at Westbahnhof.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees reported that a bout 350,000
refugees and migrants have reached the border of the European Union this year – that has left the 28-nation EU
groping for solutions amid dysfunctional squabbling over burden-sharing.