<\/p>\n
37 companies recruited beneficiaries of the organization\u2019s Employability Service<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Thessaloniki, June<\/em> 11,<\/em> 2019<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cI just signed my contract today and I\u2019m very happy. All the happiness on my face is thanks to you\u201d – Linda, 40 years old from Cameroon, beneficiary of the Blue Refugee Center\u2019s Employability Service who found a job in Thessaloniki.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Work, Confidence, Independence, Safety, Integration, and Acceptance are some of the new words learned in Greek by migrants and refugees who come to seek help and employment support at SolidarityNow\u2019s Blue Refuge Center in Thessaloniki.<\/p>\n In line with SolidarityNow\u2019s overall aim to support the integration and empowerment of refugees and migrants, despite the country\u2019s economic instability and weak labor market, the Employability & Work Counseling Service at SolidarityNow\u2019s Blue Refugee Center* in Thessaloniki<\/strong> succeeded in connecting migrant groups to the Greek labor market. Specifically, in the three years of the Service\u2019s operation, 223 people have found work based on their skills, knowledge, experience and aspirations. Furthermore, 37 companies that collaborated with the organization, hired people who have been among the Employability Service\u2019s beneficiaries.<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cSolidarityNow\u2019s Employability Service was designed based on the needs of people visiting our Centers. Our aim is to highlight and strengthen the different skills, as well as the cognitive and cultural background of our beneficiaries, so that they can respond to their new life\u201d, <\/em>notes Ioanna Fourkiotou, Director of SolidarityNow\u2019s activities in Northern Greece and continues: \u201cMost important of all is that this effort has been embraced by many companies and employers who have shown social sensitivity and hired these people, giving them a second chance in life”<\/em>.<\/p>\n SolidarityNow wants to thank the companies and employers who have turned their social responsibility into practice and have collaborated with the organization’s Employability Service. We believe – and we are working towards this direction – that in the near future we will see even more companies responding and developing synergies as an integral part of their Corporate Social Responsibility and their recruitment policy.<\/strong><\/p>\n Since 2016, a great alliance has been achieved among different stakeholders. And the heart of this alliance is in the heart of SolidarityNow\u2019s activities in Thessaloniki, the Blue Refugee Center:<\/strong><\/p>\n found work, <\/strong>mainly in the sectors of tourism and food service, but also as manual labor workers and interpreters.<\/p>\n All these were made possible through 2812 individual counseling sessions, <\/strong><\/p>\n 28 group training sessions and 3 thematic workshops.<\/strong><\/p>\n “But above all<\/em>\u201d, as the Center\u2019s employability team underlines \u201cour beneficiaries believed in themselves and in their strength and started seeing life more optimistically”<\/em>.<\/p>\n The inclusion of refugees and migrants in the Greek labor market and more broadly in the Greek society is a process with many difficulties -legal and bureaucratic- and therefore time-consuming. Furthermore, their lack of knowledge of the Greek language and the cultural differences coupled with high unemployment and discrimination are considerable barriers to entry to the labor market. However, these barriers are not insurmountable. SolidarityNow, through its Solidarity Centers and all its programs in Athens, Thessaloniki and Ioannina, as well as its specialized staff, strives to find a solution to all these difficulties and create the conditions for equal access and equal opportunities at work for Everyone.<\/p>\n *<\/em>The<\/em> Blue Refugee Center is supported by UNHCR GREECE and funded by EU.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 37 companies recruited beneficiaries of the organization\u2019s Employability Service Thessaloniki, June 11, 2019 \u201cI just signed my contract today and I\u2019m very happy. All the happiness on my face is thanks to you\u201d – Linda, 40 years old from Cameroon, beneficiary of the Blue Refugee Center\u2019s Employability Service who found a job in Thessaloniki. Work, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7155,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-homepage","category-press-release"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.solidaritynow.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7154","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=7154"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.solidaritynow.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7154\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7156,"href":"https:\/\/www.solidaritynow.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7154\/revisions\/7156"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.solidaritynow.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.solidaritynow.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.solidaritynow.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.solidaritynow.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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