"Welcome Islands": 2 Solidarity Flats for Refugees in Transit in Athens

Infomobile is a grassroots project.

We opened a first solidarity flat in 2011 in Athens for homeless refugees, in 2014 a second and in 2020/2021 during the COVID pandemic we ran a third, to house 5 children and 2 heavily pregnant women who had been sleeping in Victoria Square in Athens. 

We called these safe spaces of solidarity ‘Welcome Islands’ because we wanted to create spaces through the support of friends to offer rest and protection, and become a home with opportunities for encounters.

During the last 13 years, many different people have called the Welcome Islands "home"

> people released after months of detention, following police raids throughout Greece
> people who have survived torture
> homeless women, mothers, grandmothers, sons, entire families!
> families who would have been separated
> people waiting for family reunification
> people deported from other European countries, back to their fingerprints in Greece
> people who have no right to state shelter
> people struggling for their documents in Greece

Babies have been born in the Welcome Islands and friendships akin to family links have been made!

In 2022, the ESTIA program accommodating people in apartments was abolished, despite there being EU funding for it to continue. Now, the only accommodation for refugees in Greece is isolated and dehumanising camps. People wait months with no answer for a place.

The camps are not homes for people to live their lives or raise their families! Many people are not even able to access camps, because they are outside the asylum procedure or have concluded their cases positively and been recognised as refugees - for these people there is no guarantee of protection or safety. 

In June last year, the catastrophic shipwreck of Pylos meant the world was watching Greece so the authorities stopped pushing people back so systematically for some months - more people managed to arrive to Greece and the prison camps on the islands became overcrowded. Thousands of people were transferred to the mainland camps which also became full. The need for accommodation in Greece will not stop and neither will we.

While the state authorities have inflicted suffering, making camps the only option, evicting self-organised squats and refugee camps in the city, the Welcome Islands have survived strong. 

 

 

Our goal is to give people a safe home. Most useful are recurring donations. They can be made via our sister organization's account: 

Wohnschiffprojekt Altona e.V.
Keyword: Infomobile

IBAN: DE06200505501257122737
BIC: HASPDEHHXXX

More information: http://wohnschiffprojekt.blogsport.eu/willkommensinseln/konzept/