ECHO HUB Athens: Prepare Refugees for Integration

Dear Supporters!

Since our last report in September, we have regrettably witnessed a significant deterioration in the living conditions of refugees and asylum seekers in Athens. This is in part due to the fact that the cash cards program was interrupted cutting off a minimal yet vital source of financial support. This was a consequence of organizational incompetence by the Greek government. The transition back after four months to the Catholic Relief Service to manage the distribution of cash cards is about to be completed and the first cards are being reactivated, thank God for that.

However, this suspension has plagued thousands of families with food insecurity and homelessness (further exacerbated by the cold and wet winter months, the raging Omicron variant and an overwhelmed health care system). If it weren’t for the solidarity and support of NGOs, religious congregations, and civil initiatives that scramble to fill the gaps and provide food and basic shelter, the situation would be disastrous. To help alleviate the deteriorating situation in Athens, our Athens HUB team cooks hundreds of hot meals per week which are distributed to the increasing homeless population. In addition, we have allocated funds to buy 30 food and hygiene packages per week that get distributed to the most vulnerable families through STEPS- a partner organization focusing on Street work.

Despite a myriad of difficult problems, we keep our spirits high and never lose focus of our mission: to offer a community space with educational and employability services to refugees and migrant communities in Athens. During the worst months of Covid-19, our English and Greek language classes took place online. However, in recent months, we started reintroducing in-person classes, as well as hybrid options of offline/online to be as accessible and inclusive of our students as possible.

Many of our students are in quarantine, frightened to attend physical class, or are otherwise busy. But we do everything in our power to make our students feel safe and to offer stable, uninterrupted coursework for a sense of security and continuity. At the HUB, we enforce social distancing and lots of fresh air; students and staff test daily, and we provide FFP2 masks to all. This is an enormous organizational challenge and is only possible because of our excellent teaching staff and support team! Later this year, we proudly expanded our English and Greek classes by adding more experienced staff who currently teach 176 students on seven different levels. We also sponsor our students and help them prepare for exams, from the intermediate levels to the certified language exams. We offer employability programs such as computer classes which are necessary to obtain the ECDL qualification, as well as a coding training pilot for advanced IT students. These are in fact run by members of the refugee community. In addition, we run a CV clinic and assist with employability and vocational training opportunities. With a grant from the Austrian Ministry of Social Affairs (our first-ever governmental funding source) explore developing new career paths for our students in Athens. Currently, we have two projects in the pipeline. The first is an informational workshop to empower and assist students to work as interpreters, which is run by a qualified professional. The second is to set up a professional home caregivers training course to care for elderly people or people with special needs. We are researching for partners locally and internationally to make this a reality. We believe this is an underserved sector with a lot of employment potential for our communities.

Highlight!

We received yet another generous book donation from Book Aid International for our library at the Athens HUB, which we want to open to the locals as soon as we have built a presentable stock! We are so excited to start unpacking hundreds of copies of novels, non-fiction, science, dictionaries, and many more– Thank You, BAI!

And THANK YOU to all our supporters on GlobalGiving – returning and new - we could not have gotten through these difficult months without your generosity! Thank you so much!

In solidarity,

Gabi, Catharina, and Gabriella, and the ECHO-Team

DEAR FRIENDS!

Looking at my last report reminds me never to say never again! Corona is still around, and we have to do our best to protect the most vulnerable in our societies!

The beginning of September marks the return to education worldwide, and our HUB in Athens is no different! Although this is a stranger year, without students physically in the HUB, we have managed to continue with online classes, and our teachers have been working hard at creating the same back-to-school spirit through zoom. We are almost used to the new normal of speaking through masks and elbowing colleagues. Despite the lockdown, we distribute lesson packs and homework from the HUB and pens and notebooks for our students. We have also welcomed new volunteers; Noora, Caitlin, and Euan, who you may have seen at the front desk or helping us out in the kitchen. And a warm welcome to our new Greek teacher, Lambrini, and to Maria, who will be our coordination and administrative support, and much more. It is great to see so many familiar and new faces for a new term and increase our capacity to develop new projects. We are now preparing a soft opening of in-class attendance with strict social distancing rules and mandatory vaccination for all or regular rapid tests. All our team is already fully vaccinated, but we nevertheless self-test twice a week to add another layer of safety. As announced, we have created an ambitious training program for this term! At the beginning of September, we restarted and increased the capacity of our intense Greek and English language program, adding more experienced teachers and volunteers to our team. In addition, we offer financial literacy/life skill workshops, a variety of computer courses, including ECDL certificates and Basic Coding training! Also, we are developing new projects to increase the employability of our students by offering information workshops for career pathways as interpreters and home caregivers. Some facts and numbers for the last months of our work at the Athens HUB: Despite being locked down between February and July, our teaching staff taught 1093 online classes across all levels! In addition, we just reopened registrations for our language program, adding more courses in both and Greek languages to accommodate students from waiting lists and recruit new ones. As a result, we aim to accommodate190 students in total (max ten students per class is the Corona capacity) in the following weeks for language courses. In addition, we are also recruiting for our ECDL computer evening classes and our Pilot in Basic Coding. Also, we increased the number of meals to 120 per week as part of our ECHOSTEPS UP project to support the homeless on the streets of Athens. Thank you to the cooking team for your hard work and creativity to provide nutritious and delicious meals.

Highlight!

We want to say a huge congratulations to all our 26 students who sat ESB English Language Exams in June. Every student passed, and we saw some wonderful results with 11 Merits and 6 Distinctions - a testament to their hard work and dedication.

Learning online definitely has its challenges, but we managed to make it work and ended up having a lot of fun along the way! We prepared throughout February - June with Zoom classes three times per week, plenty of homework, and regular practice exams.

And it certainly paid off! Well done, everyone!

Also, a huge well done to our teachers! They have pulled together in this challenging situation and have done an incredible job!

 We thank all our supporters who make all this possible!

Gabi, Catharina, Gabriella and the ECHO-Team