According to the UNHCR, almost 677,000 refugees have arrived on the Greek islands in 2015. One of these islands, Lesbos, is particularly affected, with the vast majority of these refugees landing on rubber boats on the beach. In an effort to bring a bit of laughter and joy to their journey, four clowns came for two weeks, performing every day to the great pleasure of the children.

The group from Clowns Without Borders, an organization founded in Barcelona in 1993, committed to performing six shows a day for between 30 and 1,000 spectators at a time on Lesbos. From the United States, Clay Mazing, Luze Gaxiola and Molly Rose Levine joined Sabine Choucair, a Lebanese clown and art therapist, to bring laughter to refugees during their dangerous journey to Europe. They perform shows in refugee camps, bus stops and beaches, as well as smaller shows in a house.

“In the first place, we had a project with Sabine as an art director to come visit the refugee camps in Lebanon,” Molly Rose Levine, director of Clowns Without Borders and logistician of the project, told Al-Monitor over Skype. “But instead we decided to run the project in Lesbos, because that's where we are the most needed now. In fact, around 80% of the refugees crossing the Mediterranean Sea go through Lesbos on their way to Europe.” To make the project possible, they held a 10-day fundraising campaign that raised more than $5,000 from their supporters in the United States.

What brought the team to Lesbos is the feeling of emergency they got from watching the media. “We saw that everything is happening in Lesbos now, and we felt we needed to come here, they needed to see us,” Choucair explained. “And it is good we came, because everyone seems happy to see us!”