Youth SDGs – 3rd International Conference (Athens, Greece)
In the context of the 3rd conference in Athens (Greece), a 3-hour local workshop was implemented by young local participants at EKO’s office. The workshop entitled “Inclusion of Migrants and Refugees. The Case of Greece” consisted of the following objectives:
- To raise awareness on both migratory & refugee flows;
- To gain a broader knowledge on the Greek legislations;
- To introduce the fundamental human rights;
- To create an innovative practice followed by a social impact to the society
The main methods used during the implementation of the workshop included group discussions, brainstorming and desk research. Each participant expressed thoughts, ideas, solutions and even future worries about the topic. However, all conclusive remarks focused on the importance of raising social awareness and fighting against any kind of stereotypes and/or prejudices, especially through the educational system.
On Friday 13 of January 2023, a 5-hour international conference took place in Xenophon Hotel, located in Athens, Greece. The main topic of the conference was the “Inclusion of Migrants and Refugees” and there were 2 invited keynote speakers as well. The first part of the conference included presentations from each representative of the partner consortium, based on the local workshop conducted in each country. Followed by the presentations, the first speaker (Ms. Polina Papagiannolou) shared her professional experience, as an experienced social worker and volunteer in NGOs, with the audience, while the second one (Mr. Stelios Arvanitidis), as a social worker in METAdrasi NGO, discussed openly about serious incidents, problematic situations with bureaucratic issues, the procedure of assisting unaccompanied minors as well as the main working methods with migrants/refugees in the center.
The second part of the conference was conducted on Saturday, 14th of January 2023, in the same conference room of the hotel with all the partners and 2 more guest speakers. After a short presentation of the current situation in Greece, the migration and refugee flows, the floor was given to the 2 guest speakers, who were invited as real-life examples of good practices. The first speaker (Mr. Iman Alidoosti) was the founder of the refugee-led NGO “The Boat Art Collective” and shared his experience and all of his steps so far, concerning the constitution of the organization. Additionally, the second guest speaker (Mr. Rouddy Kimpioka) founder of the refugee-led NGO “RAD Music International” located in Lesvos, Greece talked about the vision and the aims of his organization as well the future achievements and discussed with the participants about his experience and entrepreneurial movement.
In general the conference was structured in such a way, to contain both theoretical part from the presentations of each partner organizations local workshop as well as to present and promote refugee-led organizations as a good practice and inspiration for the next generations.
At EKO we strongly believe that youngsters and civil society via its youth workers, volunteers and members in general should open the discussion publicly, can bring about change by raising awareness and by convincing authorities to take more and better action against this social phenomenon.
As EKO, we are very grateful and we thank both project partners ”elements e.V.” and ”TtB” for joining this last conference and offering their participants the chance for interpersonal exchange and for creating lots of wonderful memories! The greatest thing was to have the opportunity to create impact and raise our voice to make people and society understand. Special thanks to all the youth workers of EKO as well and local members for making this project so special and for giving all their amazing energy and knowledge into every session.
Last but not least, a big thank you to the EKO organizing team and especially to Ms. Angeliki Marinou for being such a great host, active and very helpful with everyone!