The 19-year-old Aya from Syria is white like snow. She has a beautiful pure white face and great eyes. Wafaa, resembles her mother; she is Aya’s three-year-old daughter who has two lovely dark brown eyes. While we were eyeing Aya warily, she was chasing Omar, her two-year-old son.

Therefore, we started our conversation with Aya’s spouse, Abdul. The first question was his! He asks about our profession and when its his turn to answer the same, he gets up from his chair with excitement saying: “What do you want? I can make it!”. He is a carpenter and willing to make everything! Abdul has been to Greece before; he was afraid that war would break out in his country and that he would lose his job. As it happened.

He still remembers that during his initial stay in Greece, a woman had told him that whoever “drinks the ‘Greek water’ never forgets Greece and returns”. “I will never forget that”, he says. Besides, this is what happened to him as well. He liked Greece that much and when he decided to flee his country due to war, the only country he wanted to go was Greece.

Today, Abdul has created a beautiful, bright home for his family in Athens, which is one out of the six solidarity homes. Abdul and Aya attend the Greek language courses provided under the framework of the “Solidarity Homes” program, which is implemented by SolidarityNow with the support of the organization Help Refugees.

This is also only the start for Aya who lost the opportunity to finish school in her country and now dreams of doing so in Greece. She has an even greater dream; to become a paediatrician! Abdul, Aya, Wafaa and Omar participate in all the activities implemented for the members of the six families in the solidarity homes and they especially love     long walks like those to the sea. Aya dreams of having a car of her own one day as to drive far and get to know new places.

Aya talks about her homeland with nostalgia; she is missing it. But she is willing to start a new life in Greece, a life that surely, as she says, will be better for her children.

Later in the afternoon, Aya will meet Gofran and Ariz -neighbors- to take their tea together. Their relationship was developed through the “Solidarity Homes” program and all family members enjoy the company of each other. They have something in common; a hard past they want to leave behind, a safe present they are now sharing through the program and a future full of positive prospects for which they are willing to try.

Help us support more Families to find a safe Home – A Solidarity Home. Click here: https://www.solidaritynow.org/solidarity-homes/ 

*Solidarity Homes is a program implemented by SolidarityNow in collaboration and with the support of the organization Help Refugees. Through the program, which was initiated in June 2017, accommodation is offered to the most vulnerable population groups – Greeks and refugees – on the sole criterion of their urgent need.

It is just seven months old, yet is a hyperactive creature with restless eyes!

Our entrance into this solidarity home causes anxiety to this creature that feels uncomfortable and suddenly moves behind the door, just a breath away from the 3-year-old Josephine who knows she will offer protection, if necessary. She changes places at least ten times until she ends up under the left corner of Josephine’s bed; there she will be able to have everything under supervision; meaning our feet!

Her name?

Kitty.

Her identity?

Persian cat.

If we described her in one word, what would that be?

Bushy!

So, Kitty is the seventh member of the family in this solidarity home, that, as they say, is an equal member with its rights and obligations. These are truly the “magnificent seven”!

The family is in Greece since 1995, where they came as migrant workers. Today they are not considered migrants anymore, but they remain people who need to try hard to live in dignity, as the economic crisis in Greece has “brought them upside down”, as Daniela, 34, mother of three children, says and smiles bitterly. The same does her husband, Sergio, who shakes his head, applauding Daniela’s words. Our discussion for their family history that brings them today in one of the solidarity homes is often interrupted by their children’s crying and requests; but the solution is coming from the grandmother, the sixth but main member of the family who is there and solves everything.

The grandmother Anna who is only 65 years old has many stories to narrate. Anna her spouse sought a better future for their children in Greece in the mid-1990s. They worked hard and at some point, their efforts paid off, some of the dreams come true, their children grew up and they were living altogether happily. Thereafter, Anna’s daughter, Daniela, met Sergio and the couple started its life; today they are the parents of three children. However, the next years were not so good as the first ones of their common life – discharges, frustrations, increased needs, reduced revenues.

They first asked support by the competent services of the Municipality of Athens and later they were introduced to SolildarityNow; this is how they are nowadays residents of one of the six solidarity homes. They are so happy and grateful! “I laugh again! I’m not afraid now, I’ve gotten low and now I feel like I’m reclaiming life“, Daniela says. Sergio does not talk so much, but his eyes shine excited.

Now they have a home they can start from the beginning. They know, and they are not afraid of working hard. Now, Daniela works for a few hours in a retail store and is very happy about it; Sergio tries to find any job – they do not give up.

In one of the house’s rooms there is a table full of open books and notebooks; this is the office of the 8-year-old Natalia who goes to school. Her two younger siblings run around her and mix her things; a classic family moment in a home with children – a moment of a solidarity home.

Anna, the grandmother, Daniela and Sergio will make it; Greece is their country, they feel very close to the Greeks and do not change it. Together with Kitty, who is moving from her position, the family accompanies us to the door while we reschedule our appointment for a next meeting. Kitty looks at us until we leave the corridor – probably wanting to make sure we leave – this solidarity home is all hers again.

Help us support more Families to find a safe Home – A Solidarity Home. Click here: https://www.solidaritynow.org/solidarity-homes/ 

*Solidarity Homes is a program implemented by SolidarityNow in collaboration and with the support of the organization Help Refugees. Through the program, which was initiated in June 2017, accommodation is offered to the most vulnerable population groups – Greeks and refugees – on the sole criterion of their urgent need.

Firas counts his children and presents them one by one.

One, two, three, four daughters. The one more beautiful than the other!

“I am proud and lucky to have them”.

The 40-year-old Firas and his spouse arrived at Greece, having as their first stop the small island of Farmakonisi in Dodecanese. They have suffered a lot in their country. Firas was persecuted by the regime, lost his job, and his family faced threats. He had no other choice but to look for safety in another country. Thus, they all made the painful journey towards Europe.

Life in Syria was beautiful the old days, prior the war. Firas, as a civil engineer, was employed in the construction sector and managed to live with dignity in a safe environment. However today Firas and his family have found safety far away from their country in a country which they feel as if their own.

The four girls and their parents live in one of the six solidarity homes, in the context of the homonymous program which is implemented by SolidarityNow, with the support of the organization Help Refugees. They are happy for this progress in their lives. The four girls attend school and learn the Greek language. At the same time, their parents join the Greek language courses provided to all beneficiaries of the Solidarity Homes program -and not only.

Despite his health problems, Firas hopes that he will succeed finding a job after learning Greek. His aim is to gain back financial independence for his family.

Firas and his wife keep repeating that their four daughters are the ones supporting them emotionally. These wonderful girls who smile politely and embrace their parents throughout our conversation. The two older girls are also very good students. When the family was initially hosted in the organization’s structure in Peania, the two girls were the first to participate in the educational activities. They impressed everyone when they recited the poem ‘Eirini’ by Giannis Ritsos in fluent Greek!

“Peace is a glass of warm milk and a book in front of the child waking up”.

Help us support more Families to find a safe Home – A Solidarity Home. Click here: https://www.solidaritynow.org/solidarity-homes/ 

*Solidarity Homes is a program implemented by SolidarityNow in collaboration and with the support of the organization Help Refugees. Through the program, which was initiated in June 2017, accommodation is offered to the most vulnerable population groups – Greeks and refugees – on the sole criterion of their urgent need.

“I have the most beautiful woman; I know it“, says Rimon.

Ariz blushes and looks down. “He loves me“, she says.

And so it seems; Rimon and Ariz from Syria – parents of two children, the 7-year-old Lana and the 3-year-old Elias.

Their family is hosted in one for the six solidarity homes, in the context of the “Solidarity Homes” program, implemented by SolidarityNow in collaboration and with the support of the organization Help Refugees.

They live in Athens; they have gained back a normal daily life. As we were talking, Ariz cooked the family lunch, then she would read Greek and later she would take Lana from school. Before their night dreams, Lana and Elias will listen to mom’s stories; Ariz will do the same as she did in Syria; telling bed time stories either that she comes up with or some she knows from her mother. Any questions about the stories are answered in the morning!

Most of the neighbors think that Rimon and Ariz are from Greece and they talk to them in Greek. Ariz and Rimon smile politely at them because they are now learning the language by attending lessons provided in the context of the “Solidarity Homes” program. More specifically, the members of the six families hosted in the solidarity homes attend Greek and English courses at the organization’s Blue Dots Center and at the premises of the new SolidarityNow education and training center, in Athens. The same applies to little Lana, who attends Greek public school.

Ariz, at her 37 and Rimon at his 42, are a modern couple – they want to build a new life in Europe without memories from the past. They don’t want to talk about the past and the painful trip of their displacement. They lay all their hopes for a better future on themselves and their efforts to integrate into a European society and be able to work again. In Syria, both worked as nurses. Rimon and Ariz worked in the same city where they met and fell in love.

Ariz’s dream is her children “to become citizens of the world. Not to get through so tough times. In our 40 years, we were displaced. I want my children to live where there is safety“.

*Mate, originally an Argentinian drink, is very popular in Syria. The drink, which contains mateine (an analog of caffeine), is made by an infusion of dried leaves of yerba mate.

**Rimon, Ariz, Lana and Elias are now in Germany, hosted in a refugee camp and they are about to begin a new life. We wish them all the best!

Help us support more Families to find a safe Home – A Solidarity Home. Click here: https://www.solidaritynow.org/solidarity-homes/ 

*Solidarity Homes is a program implemented by SolidarityNow in collaboration and with the support of the organization Help Refugees. Through the program, which was initiated in June 2017, accommodation is offered to the most vulnerable population groups – Greeks and refugees – on the sole criterion of their urgent need.

Ahmad is a 50-year-old, lawyer, painter and poet.

In his country Syria and in the Arab world, is among the well-known contemporary authors. Even today, despite persecutions, imprisonment, health problems, family separation and the experience of becoming a refugee, he continues to write poems and prose that he sends for publication in Arabic newspapers and magazines.

He is married to the 44-year-old Nadjah, a former teacher, and a father of three; Yozan, 20, Haya, 18 and Abdalah, 13 years old. His financial situation was very good during the years he lived with his family in Raqqa, Syria. “For 20 years, a competent lawyer and active citizen“, he says.

Ahmad is hosted today in a SolidarityNow apartment in Athens, along with his eldest son Yozan, in the framework of ESTIA*, the Emergency Support to Integration and Accommodation program. In an apartment full of colors, paintbrushes and paintings, while in the center of this small house is the painter’s easel; the painter who does not stop to surprise. When he paints, he confesses, he needs to listen to music. Suddenly something intimate was heard – music by ‘Odes’, the album of Greek folk songs by Irene Papas and Vangelis Papathanasiou! At the same time, he says that one of his favorite painters is the Greek painter, Panayiotis Tetsis.

But Ahmad’s story begins earlier; a story in which he is the hero and tries hard to save his life. He left with his family and reached Turkey to get away from ISIS. They stayed there for a long time. The famous writer, Ahmad, although a refugee in Turkey, was almost every month a guest in a Turkish University to present his work, but also to speak about the life as a persecuted in Syria. Not even there, he stopped fighting for freedom of speech and human rights.

Shortly after, his wife with the two younger children returned to Syria when Ahmad’s mother-in-law died, with a view to returning to Turkey a few weeks later. But they didn’t manage to reunite. The borders were gradually closed. It was difficult for them to even move within Syria.

Ahmad and Yazan fled to Greece. From Farmakonisi to Leros, then to Athens and the SolidarityNow apartment. They are currently in anticipation of bringing the rest of the family to Greece. Ahmad, however, tries not to face life passively. He supports and relies on his son, a talented amateur footballer, as he sees him, he reads about ancient Greek culture and dreams of becoming a professional painter.  

*ESTIA, the Emergency Support to Integration and Accommodation program, is implemented by SolidarityNow, supported by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and funded by European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations (ECHO).

“We came here to the woods because we were told that there is no place for us in the camp. We kept waiting out in the cold. For what? For nothing. My wife was nine months pregnant. The first few days, we were offered help by friends, but also by people who didn’t know us at all. Then, someone left and gave us their tent. A few days ago, my wife gave birth to our third child, a girl. Her name, Rafif. My wife was admitted to the hospital and three days later the birth they told me we could leave. But we didn’t have anywhere to go, so we came back to the tent.

I left my country’s hell, a place without houses, people, life; a destroyed place. If I knew this would be the case, I don’t know if I had come. Maybe, I would have stayed to die in my homeland. The only difference here is that they don’t bombard us.

I cannot see any future here, life, prospects. We live in the woods, in the cold. Every morning we wake up frozen. I help my wife get up because her body hurts. We are sleeping down. I asked to transfer my wife to Kara Tepe until she gives birth. Nothing happened. And from day to day she will have our child.

All I ask for is safety and dignity for me and my family. If there was a life for us here in Greece, a job, I would like to stay here.”

Bashar, 29, comes from Syria where he worked as an electrical engineer. He arrived at Lesvos on November 16^th, 2017 with his wife Bara, 23, nine months pregnant, and their two children, Rima, 4 and Muhammad, 2 years old.

Note

Little Rafif and her family are now living in a warm home in Lesvos thanks to the kindness of a resident who helped them. The five members of Bashar’s family will sleep in a real bed, under a real roof, after such a long time!

“My wife is six-month pregnant; yet, she has not been either treated or examined by any doctor since we have come here. She is about to give birth to our fourth child. In Syria, we don’t have doctors anymore, they have all left the country because of the war. I didn’t expect that things here would be even harder for us. We live in a tent, into the mud. I must wait in a queue for at least two to three hours to get some food. Sometimes, if there are conflicts in the queue while waiting we go away empty-handed and hungry.

What is my wish? All I want is my children to go to school and live in safety. I want my pregnant wife who is in pain not to live under these nasty conditions. In the tent, it’s as if we live in a plastic bag. If we leave the tent open, it really grows cold; when we close it, it is cold again. Every so often I wonder; could anyone of the decision-makers bear his family to live in a tent?

What does festivity mean to me? Home. Safety. Dignity. Here, someone loses their dignity as humans. We have forgotten what celebration means. Any kind of feast is meaningless if you cannot offer your children the least of what they ask; a sweet.”

The 37-year-old Ahmed comes from Deir ez-Zor in Syria where he worked as a

shoemaker. He has been in Lesvos for a month with his wife Rasinta, 34, six

months pregnant, and their three children:

Basar, 11, Usar, 9 and Asma, 2 years old.

Μ. found hope again, with the support of the Personal Counseling and Psychotherapy Department at the Athens Solidarity Center

Vicky Anastasiou,

Reception Officer at the Athens Solidarity Center

“I am looking forward to leave; I will travel to find my children. I am waiting for the ticket to Germany. If I hadn’t come to Athens Solidarity Center I would have committed suicide; I wouldn’t be able to do anything. I felt sick, I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t sleep, and I had a constant headache. Now I am attending sessions with the psychological team at the Center and I have started thinking positively”, M., a 28-year-old woman, mother of two, from Kandahar, confesses.

The six-year-old A. and the four-year-old R. contact with their mother by post. She sends them letters and they send back drawings. This irregular way of communication has been going on for a year and a half, as long as they have been separated, since the mother was arrested during their escape travel, while the kids continued the trip with the rest of the team. Months went away until she had news from them.

Μ. was widowed at the age of 24. She left Afghanistan when Taliban murdered her husband. Her life was in danger. “They could have kidnapped me, made me marry a Taliban and recruited my children. I was left alone, and I decided that I would either die or pursuit a better life.”

*Μ. is one of the beneficiaries receiving the services provided pro bono to vulnerable population groups in SolidarityNow Athens Solidarity Center. Learn more about the Athens Solidarity Center, https://www.solidaritynow.org/en/kentro-allileggiis-athinas/.

Athens Solidarity Center has been financed by SolidarityNow and Open Society Foundations (OSF/OSIFE), while complementary services are funded by EaSI ( Employment and Social Innovation) in the context of  “Employment enhancement and Social services integration in Athens Municipality (ESTI@)” program.

Thodoris and Eleni, SolidarityNow employees, Blue Dots program

Thodoris: Occupational therapist with postgraduate studies and trainer of the Sherborne method (pedagogical method), with large experience in storytelling and team empowerment.

Eleni: Psychologist and art historian, also with experience in storytelling and group empowerment.

From the very beginning of their professional acquaintance, Thodoris and Eleni felt that “we match, ‘we are birds of a feather’”.

“From the first moment we realized that we would have an interesting and effective cooperation”, they confide.

photos: Giorgos Moutafis for SolidarityNow

Our dream was to create a safe space (both psychological and physical) for the children, where they can play and mainly express themselves. Through discussions and study, we set our core goal, since we concluded that the greatest need for refugee children is to win back their roles in life; the roles of the child or adolescent, son or daughter, student. Thus, we developed a program to primarily achieve this goal. The key component of our work is to be honest and direct in our communication with the children, paying attention to each one of them personally.

So, imagine our joy…

In the case of the concert held in Elefsina camp by the children’s choir, when their parents were telling us that it was the first time after years that they applauded their children.

Or when, after a quarrel, the two teenagers involved, asked us to discuss the incident with the adolescent group.

Or when, on our excursion to the adventure park, the children dreamed of reaching the sky!

Or the moment when the camp was no longer a hall of shadows, but a building full of toys and children’s voices.

Or when, on the first day at school, our children proudly showed their bags and asked us to help with their homework.

Or … or … or … we could mention so many more beautiful moments!

For us, every child is unique and special. Each one of them has their own story, personality and future. If we manage to support them, we are proud of our work. We do not believe in heroes; we believe in the power born when people meet and interact honestly“.

*Thodoris and Eleni share with us their experience and emotions during their work at the Blue Dots Unit operated by SolidarityNow in the Elefsina accommodation structure. The structure remained open until October 2017.

Τhe Blue Dots program is implemented by SolidarityNow, supported by UNICEF, with funding from the European Commission’s Humanitarian Aid Department (ECHO).