Lighthouse Relief

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Lighthouse Relief

We are on a mission to fill gaps in humanitarian protection for people seeking refuge.

Areas of support:

1) EMERGENCY RESPONSE
Food and NFIs distributions, streetwork, helplines, and emergency housing for people living under precarious conditions in Athens.

2) SOCIAL SERVICES & INTEGRATION
Social work, case management and referrals to other service providers to facilitate integration into Greek society.

3) MENTAL HEALTH & PSYCHOSOCIAL SUPPORT
Safe spaces, sports, educational and recreational activities for children, women, and youth living in Ritsona Camp.

26/05/2026

Football is more than a sport; it creates connection beyond borders, strengthens belonging, and provides an outlet for physical and mental wellbeing. For many players, football has the power to change lives.

For the past decade, Lighthouse Relief has been running football programmes for children and young people residing in refugee camps across mainland Greece. Our sessions continue to give hope to hundreds of people who have faced harrowing journeys to seek safety in Europe.

Today is World Football Giving Day – designed to shine a light on the organisations and people using the game every day to create safe spaces, stronger communities, and life-changing opportunities for young people around the world.

Lighthouse Relief is one of over 200 such organisations, across 100 countries, rallying together, as part of World Football Giving Day. We are joined together by a commitment to providing sport4development programming that supports communities experiencing vulnerability worldwide.

If you believe in the power of football to change lives, please consider supporting our projects – all donations, of any amount, make an important difference in young people’s lives. Discover a with Lighthouse Relief here: www.lighthouserelief.org/football

A big shoutout to all individuals and organisations supporting World Football Giving Day.

And many thanks to Max Pigott for the images - taken at our session yesterday near Ritsona camp and at the Kypseli Mundial tournament that the Lighthouse Relief FC participated in recently.

19/05/2026

We’re excited to share that Lighthouse Relief has begun new programming at the Community Centre of Corinth with Meraki.

Our team is now providing administrative and job search support for refugees and asylum seekers living in Corinth camp.

Our first goal is to support them with essential administrative tasks such as opening a bank account, setting up their Taxisnet, getting social security numbers (AMA, AMKA) and other important processes needed to start working and living in Greece. The Greek system is incredibly hard to navigate and mistakes can easily lead to consequences affecting almost all areas of life. Without a functioning governmental account and accompanying numbers, a person does not have access to health care, job contracts, or housing, all essential to rebuilding a life in safety. The assistance we provide includes booking appointments at government services and supporting the process of gathering necessary documents for each step.

The second part of our project offers guided job search support, enabling people to become more independent and learn how to autonomously find safe, reliable employment in Greece. We educate people about their rights in the labour market, requirements for employment in Greece, and proven paths to look for jobs. We create CVs for those who enter the labour market for the first time, and offer advice on existing CVs. Our work also includes translation and interpretation in several languages. The goal is to educate and assist refugees and asylum seekers to find secure and sustainable employment, as an important step towards a self-determined life.

Alongside this, we’ve launched structured basketball and volleyball sessions at the community court — creating space for connection, teamwork, and wellbeing.

This collaboration builds on a shared commitment to dignified, community‑driven support. We’re grateful to be working alongside Meraki and the residents of Corinth Refugee Camp to expand access to MHPSS activities and practical services that can strengthen long-term social and economic integration.

Stay tuned for updates from our sessions or get involved on the ground by visiting www.lighthouserelief.org/work-with-us

15/05/2026

The men's FIFA World Cup is just four weeks away and Lighthouse Relief is proud to announce that we’re bringing our very own team to Athens’ version of the global football tournament: Kypseli Mundial!

For a decade, football has been at the heart of our mental health and psychosocial support using sport for development methodologies. Working with children and young people across mainland refugee camps, including the isolated Ritsona Camp, we have created spaces for wellbeing, resilience, confidence-building, and community.

Kypseli Mundial is a vibrant festival of football and music, now in its third year - although its origins date back to 2008, when the Union of Africans in Greece organised the African Cup of Greece.

The majority of the twenty teams in this year’s Kypseli Mundial represent African migrant communities. Plus, the tournament includes a growing women’s competition.

Most of the Lighthouse Relief FC players are residents of Ritsona Refugee Camp, for whom our football sessions are a vital opportunity to briefly escape the stifling conditions within the camp. The skill, teamwork, athleticism and enthusiasm they bring to our sessions every week will be brought to a new stage at Kypseli Mundial.

We have been drawn in Group C, with our first qualifying matches kicking off this weekend. We are very hopeful to see our team reach the finals on May 23-24. Stay tuned for updates next week!

11/05/2026

Join Lighthouse Relief and support community‑centered programmes for refugees in Greece. We’re looking for passionate Interns to power our activities on the ground and a Head of Communications & Partnerships to manage our communications and fundraising initiatives. You can help us strengthen our impact — supporting the psychosocial wellbeing of people seeking refuge in Greece through sport, education, storytelling, and data.

Open roles:
💛Head of Communications & Partnerships
💛Project Officer (Intern)
💛Sports Officer (Intern)
💛Data Science Officer (Intern)
💛Language Education Officer (Intern)

If you’re driven by human‑centered work, creative problem‑solving, and meaningful community engagement, we would love to hear from you.

Lighthouse Relief offers a competitive Internship programme with numerous opportunities for personal and professional development. Grow your skills, work with a dedicated team, connect across cultures, and make a real impact on the ground — all within a flexible and supportive environment.

Apply now via the link in our bio or go to www.lighthouserelief.org/work-with-us

23/04/2026

At Lighthouse Relief, we bear witness to increasingly harsh circumstances for people seeking refuge in Greece. One of our core commitments is to raise awareness and advocate for the respect of international protections and dignified conditions for people as they seek safety and rebuild their lives.

The Lighthouse Relief blog is a space where individual expression becomes part of a collective voice. We welcome stories, informative articles, photo journals, artwork, and reflections that speak to lived realities, solidarity, and positive change.

Writing for our blog means contributing to advocacy, amplifying perspectives that are often overlooked, and connecting your voice to a wider community, all while you build your own portfolio.

We invite contributions that engage with the realities of displacement and humanitarian response—from personal experiences and frontline reflections to thoughtful analyses of policy, protection gaps, and the broader social and political landscape.

However you choose to express your perspective, you help deepen understanding of complex systems and spark meaningful dialogue that can shift the migration narrative toward equity and dignified representations.

You can submit your article in any language. We encourage you to include a secondary English translation if possible.

Explore our blog, view submission guidelines, and submit your article via the link in our bio or go to: www.lighthouserelief.org/advocacy

Read, create, share—and be part of the collective voices of Lighthouse Relief. 💛

21/04/2026

For anyone entering Ritsona Camp, an unmistakable and beautiful testament to creativity is the first thing you'll see. In 2016, the Noh family in Ritsona Camp painted a beautiful mural (first page) that remains a sign of welcome and hope.

Today, on World Creativity & Innovation Day, we’re celebrating the imagination, resilience, and innovation of refugees who have shaped Lighthouse Relief’s community spaces over the years.

Creativity has always been at the heart of our work - from our early Child Friendly Space in Ritsona Refugee Camp, where children transformed everyday materials and toys into stories and worlds of their own, to the vibrant Youth Engagement Space in Ritsona, where young people expressed themselves through photography, music, design, and collaborative projects. The Youth Engagement Space was the birthplace of the Ritsona Kingdom Journal in 2017, a powerful collection of poetry, film, prose, and art from the talented young residents of Ritsona Camp.

Today, in our current Safe Space sessions at the Sama Community Centre, we work with displaced women and youth, co-leading creative classes, including ceramic workshops with artist Janet Lines, in which we explore identity, healing, and connection.

For the communities we support across Greece, creativity is more than expression, it is a way to imagine the future beyond displacement. We’ve been humbled to play a small part in supporting the incredible imagination, hopes, and ambitions of people seeking safety as they rebuild their lives in new homes.

Today we are spotlighting the artists, thinkers, builders, and dreamers who make our spaces come alive — and the creativity that continues to guide Lighthouse Relief’s journey.

Take a peek in our creative archives, including past editions of the Ritsona Kingdom Journal, on the last page.

"Stateless" film features poem and voiceover by Adnan Hassan and videography in collaboration with Adnan, the youth of Ritsona Camp, and the LHR team.

06/04/2026

Today, on the International Day of Sport for Development and Peace, we’re celebrating the role of sport to drive social change, strengthen communities, and create spaces for connection and understanding.

For children and young people especially, forced displacement and the search for safety disrupts development, learning, and increases the risk of mental and physical illness. That’s why access to activities that support cognitive and emotional wellbeing, such as sport, is vital.

Playing sport has been shown to lift the mood, reduce stress, and improve focus and emotional regulation. Team sports, in particular, can teach coping skills, cooperation beyond language barriers, boost self-esteem, and build resilience, all while fostering social integration and community.

For all these reasons, sport has been at the heart of Lighthouse Relief’s work for 10 years — from football, basketball, and cricket, to tennis, archery, and table tennis. Our sport4development programming would not be possible without the support of equally dedicated partners and funders throughout the years.

In 2026, our football programming remains a pillar of our mental health and psychosocial support for young people residing in Ritsona, where our sport programming first launched in 2016.

We invite you to read our blog post on the psychological benefits of sport to learn more: https://medium.com//psychological-benefits-of-sports-c8a7a9b3e4c7

02/04/2026

Ten years ago today, Barcelona played Real Madrid in the 172nd league meeting of the two sides, an iconic fixture known as “El Clásico”.

The match was watched by nearly 99,000 spectators in Barcelona’s Nou Camp stadium, and a worldwide television audience of over 600 million. However, from our perspective, few would have followed the match more passionately than the residents of Katsikas refugee camp in northern Greece.

Katsikas camp was created in March 2016 to provide shelter for over a thousand refugees who had recently arrived after escaping civil war and persecution in Syria and Afghanistan. At the time, accommodation was very basic – tents pitched on gravel and stone. Sanitary conditions were poor, and only a small number of NGOs, including Lighthouse Relief, were providing food, drink, clothing, and other essential items.

There was barely any electricity, and communication with the outside world was almost impossible. In conjunction with two other small NGOs (Soup & Socks, from Germany, and Olvidados, from Spain), Lighthouse Relief volunteers set up a basic WiFi system, and secured a projector and screen.

Football is the world’s favourite game and has long been a part of Lighthouse Relief’s psychosocial support. On April 2nd, 2016, the world’s two most famous players (Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo) lined up for Barcelona and Real Madrid. Most of the children in the camp were fans of one or the other.

With the arrival of a basic power supply and the installation of WiFi, news soon spread of the plans to show the match. It became a huge event. People made signs supporting the teams and gathered to watch together.

For a couple of hours the residents of Katsikas camp could forget their difficult journeys to Greece, and immerse themselves in the drama of El Clásico. The match was typically pulsating, with Ronaldo scoring the winner for Real Madrid five minutes from the end.

Today, we continue this dedication to football, MHPSS, and community through weekly football sessions for young men living in Ritsona Camp.

01/04/2026

Meet The Team: before they became our team!

We’re so excited to celebrate the launch of our TikTok and we just had to jump on this trend.

From tiny humans to a team driven by purpose — to provide welcoming and dignified support for people seeking refuge as they rebuild their lives in safety 💙💛

We are building our TikTok to continue raising awareness of the realities for refugees and asylum seekers in Greece, and to share stories from the community and your impact through our programming.

Join our community of support and help us increase our reach by following us on TikTok:

Same name, same mission — .relief

26/03/2026

This past weekend, many people around the world and in our community in Greece joined their loved ones to observe Eid, the end of the holy month of Ramadan. For many, this is an opportunity to spend time with loved ones, cook together, eat together, and reflect. Others in our community also celebrated Nowruz, the start of a new year, marked with a verdant table of symbolic offerings representing love, prosperity, patience, and more.

In many countries that our community members call home, the start of spring also coincides with Mother’s Day - a day to honour those who help us grow, who shape us, and who nurture us.

For people in displacement, all of these celebrations are reminiscent of communities, homes, and loved ones across borders. We hope that these holidays bring a little bit of light and joy to difficult times and offer opportunities to strengthen new connections in Greece as people rebuild their lives in safety. Most of all, we hope that these holidays remind us that togetherness is the only way forward through grief, conflict, pain, and war - as we welcome a new season, we kindle the hope that we have for a kinder future.

To all those observing, we wish you joy, warmth and comfort now and all year long. Eid Mubarak, Nowruz Mubarak, and Happy Mother’s Day 💛

Images are from Lighthouse Relief’s Safe Space sessions for women and children at the Sama Community Centre.

Address

Athens
10434

Website

http://www.lighthouserelief.org/, http://bio.site/lighthouserelief, https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/integration-th

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