ATHENS, \u2026..\u00a0 It is fifteen minutes past ten in the morning and the newly refurbished second floor of old Frourarchio building is getting seriously busy. The \u201cSolidarity Center\u201d set up here by organization \u201cSolidarity Now\u201d, at the heart of downtown Athens, made a low profile appearance last October while preparing for a full swing of services provision this year. Word though has gone around between the many needy in the city and plenty have already been receiving help and aid from various NGOs hosted in the Center. In the legal assistance office set up by NGO Arsis Theoni \u2026 is discussing the case of a defendant that carries a long history of legal and social problems. It is clearly a person that would be unable to provide financially for this service and the presence of this office ensures that the accused won\u2019t be showing up at court without a trained legal representative who is seriously involved in her case.<\/p>\n
In a slow day there should be another three lawyers in this office but all of them are already at court for various cases. \u201cEach one of us has already piled up with 70 or 90 cases. We have to postpone meetings with people asking for assistance and we have just started here\u201d says Theoni Koufonikolakou in a way that demonstrates how many people are in need of legal assistance. \u201cWe look into asylum cases, family law issues, even some criminal cases\u201d she says. \u201cMostly we meet with irregular immigrants trying to short out their documents and individuals or families overburdened with debt. Both are the result of an undergoing social and economic crisis\u201d.<\/p>\n
Legal assistance and counseling offered by Arsis is just one branch of the various services provided by the Solidarity Center. Medical services as well as employment skills training and advice are provided by NGO Praksis, and a children\u2019s support center as well as a helpline and psycho-social services to mothers and families in need are provided by NGOs Network for Children\u2019s Rights and Together for Children.<\/p>\n
Solidarity Now\u2019s effort has been one case among the many different attempts alongside civil society to offer welfare services to people struck hard by the five year long crisis in Greece. But it appears to be a unique one given its emphases on providing an environment within which various organizations can meet and join efforts in tackling acute social deficiencies.<\/p>\n
\u201cHaving four different organizations working together under the same roof on a daily basis is a unique experiment in Greece\u201d says Epameinondas Farmakis, the newly appointed Managing Director of \u201cSolidarity Now\u201d pointing out that next to the priority for the Solidarity Center in Athens to provide basic welfare services for those in need, the organization is also interested in contributing to updating the local civil society ecology. \u201cIt is our intention to support and promote a collaborative culture among the Greek civil society actors, whether they are non-profit organizations, citizens\u2019 groups, or active individuals. We believe that civil society actors should come together, exchange ideas and best practices in order to better shape their priorities and meet their common goals\u201d Farmakis explains.<\/p>\n
To that effect Solidarity Now also provides an open space for co-working practices, such as trainings and workshops, within its venue in Athens, hoping this could further enhance citizens\u2019 collaboration. Crucial to the advance of this collaboration has also been the initiative of Athens Municipality, owner of the property, to release the venue to Solidarity Now for ten years in exchange for the refurbishment and reactivation of the property that had been disserted for years.<\/p>\n
Co-operation with local community has been a very important factor explains Evi Papatheodorou, Director of \u2018Thessaloniki Solidarity Center\u2019 that \u201cSolidarity Now\u201d has established since the beginning of 2014 at the second largest city in Greece.\u00a0Experience accumulated by this structure will be crucial for understanding the nature of the problems the new structure in Athens will deal with as well as for tailoring a holistic approach to problems, which is the methodology the \u201cSolidarity Now\u201d Centers would like to promote according to Papatheodorou.<\/p>\n
\u201cOften someone comes to us for medical reasons and soon after we find out that they also face legal issues or they need to be connected with other municipal or social services\u201d she says. The Thessaloniki Solidarity Center has hosted 2281 cases since opening its doors, 961 received legal and 1320 medical assistance. From those 87 percent were unemployed and 82 percent had fallen off any kind of social insurance. Papatheodorou says she has been surprised by how many of those in need belong to the so call productive ages groups. About 66 percent of people approaching the Center were between 31 and 65 years old and another 30 percent between 19 and 30. Its possibly due to this that \u201cin one year of function we have discovered that the importance of social services, beyond medical and legal, are more necessary than we though\u201d she says \u201cand our effort to provide complete solutions by following up the problems and referring people to social services offered by local authorities have made us already a well known element among the local civil society\u201d.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ATHENS, \u2026..\u00a0 It is fifteen minutes past ten in the morning and the newly refurbished second floor of old Frourarchio building is getting seriously busy. The \u201cSolidarity Center\u201d set up here by organization \u201cSolidarity Now\u201d, at the heart of downtown Athens, made a low profile appearance last October while preparing for a full swing of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2755,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2754","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-human-stories"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.solidaritynow.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2754","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.solidaritynow.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.solidaritynow.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.solidaritynow.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.solidaritynow.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2754"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.solidaritynow.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2754\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2756,"href":"https:\/\/www.solidaritynow.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2754\/revisions\/2756"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.solidaritynow.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2755"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.solidaritynow.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.solidaritynow.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.solidaritynow.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}