By GABRIELLA DIXON | CO-Founder
Dear Friends!
We are very happy to announce that all 23 ECHO HUB students who took the Open College Network English exams in May have passed with flying colors! Excellent news to close the term for August - so that students, staff, and our volunteers got some well-deserved rest!
To celebrate the end of term our Greek language students went on an educational one-day trip to the island of Aegina! Students. Accompanied by their teachers they visited the Temple and the Museum of Aphaia, the Archaeological Museum and the archaeological site of Kolona, as well as the Historical and Folklore Museum at the heart of Aegina town. We closed the HUB for August to give both students, staff and volunteers a well-deserved rest.
Come September we launched the reopening of our HUB with a lovely Welcome Back Event. Our teachers and volunteers presented their language programs, IT courses, employability support programs, and other services. Old and new students could ask questions and inquire about schedules, language level assessments, and exam qualifications for both Greek and English courses. We also invited other organizations working in the refugee aid context to present their programs to Athens's refugee and migrant communities. The purpose of this event is to offer in an open day setting a one-stop information opportunity at the HUB that covers a variety of needs and concerns that our beneficiaries require: Where to find legal and bureaucratic assistance, mental health support, childcare centers, higher education paths, accommodation support, medical centers, sports, and recreational courses. We strongly believe in the efficiency of collaboration with other partners for referrals and synergies.
Our program for the fall at the HUB:
We started our new language courses with 192 students attending either English (on 6 different levels) or (Greek on 4 different levels) or both.
Our Tech experts are organizing a second intensive 4-month Coding Program to prepare participants for jobs in web design and coding.
We are launching a pilot project (4 to 6 weeks) in 'Elderly Home Care Training' in partnership with professional trainers at the end of October to open up another employability path for our beneficiaries.
Flavia Stagi, an artist in residence from SNEHTA www.snehtaresidency.org will work and exhibit at the HUB together with other partner organizations to produce a communal installation. We will host an opening event as a tool to bring the local community into our HUB and thus further the integration of our students.
Our competent team of volunteers and teachers have done an incredible job setting up our multilingual library which we will also launch and open to the community in November.
Unfortunately, we observe daily an increasing amount of people in Athens suffering from food and housing insecurity. Therefore we are determined to keep supporting the efforts of the STEPS street worker organization, with freshly cooked food, sandwiches, and food packages for the most vulnerable families living on the streets or in poor housing situations.
Our challenging program for the next months will keep our team busy and we look forward to reporting on developments and success stories of our students, soon.
None of this would be possible without your ongoing support of our work. We deeply appreciate your solidarity!
Gabriella and Team
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