A trip to Greece for five Falmouth teenagers turned from a holiday to humanitarian work after they were moved by the plight of refugees on the island of Kos.

Eloise Lobban and Issy Wilde had travelled to the holiday island with their friends Anna Munden, Livvy Morrison and Jessie Winchester, to enjoy a post-college holiday before they went to university or into work, but a journey into Kos Town near where they were staying opened up their eyes to the scale of the humanitarian crisis that is unfolding in the Mediterranean.

The group stayed in their accommodation for the first couple of days but when they ventured into the town, Issy said, they saw "all the refugees, and how awful and desperate this problem was."

She said: "There's just so many of them, and they had so little, and we just wanted to find out what we could do to help straight away. It hit us really hard."

Eloise said: "There wer just tents all the way down the side of the road. They were all standing around."

The pair said there were people in the town who bought food and donations for the refugees, while others gave donations to charities which worked distributing, and they found a group of charity workers and asked what they could do to help.

Issy said: "We went to one of the supermarkets and bought some basic things like bread and biscuits, soap and towels. We just gave some of those out on the street.

"It was just awful how desperate the children were, but at the same time how polite they were, they would take everything so graciously, and be so thankful for it.

At one point, two of them became so overcome that they started crying, and one of the children came up and offered them a tissue. "Which," Issy said, "made us cry even more."

After their first day handing out donations, Anna set up a fundraising page for friends and family at home to help buy supplies, and within a couple of days they had raised €680.

Eloise said: "We went to look at it and it was just so much." Issy added: "Everyone from home was just so generous."

On their second to last day in Kos, the group went back to the town and volunteered with local charity Kos Solidarity, to which they gave the donated money.

They met a local physics teacher, George, who volunteered in his lunch breaks, and he arranged for them to go to the centre where volunteers work making over 1,000 sandwiches a day to distribute in the evenings.

At the centre, they were told that although many locals support the humanitarian effort, others were angry and tried to beat the volunteers, or shouted at them, that they shouldn't be helping the refugees.

Eloise said: "It was an amazing day for us, it was amazing to see that there are people trying to do something about [the refugee crisis].

"There were people from all over the world. People who had come on holiday and were helping out."

Issy said: "We just didn't know what to expect. We got there and it was so real, and so sad for all those people."

Kos Solidarity is in the process of setting up an account to enable it to accept overseas donations, and more information on the charity can be found by searching for Kos Solidarity on Facebook.