Welcome Foundation

12/01/2021

This year, 2021, is the sixth year of Welcome Foundation, as well as its last year, unfortunately. Welcome was founded in 2016, after our founder had gone to Lesvos and Athens and helped refugees arriving there in search of safety for themselves and their children. We thought an organization formed to help fill in the gaps that large organizations couldn’t provide for and support local groups working on the ground in Greece would be valuable. It would allow folks in the States and other places around the world to help provide basic humanitarian needs where they were sorely lacking. Welcome grew and contributed to programs in Greece helping refugee families, mothers and children. Now, the sheer magnitude and protracted nature of the refugee crisis makes small organizations like this one really feel their size and the idea of filling in the gaps becomes less realistic. What was an already challenging proposition has become even more challenging in the context of the pandemic. We have decided to close down Welcome Foundation at the end of this year, which is a hard decision, but the right one.

We are proud of the good we have done for refugees in Greece and grateful for the organizations and individuals we have worked alongside over these last 6 years including Amurtel Greece, CHEERing Greece, Rita Continakis, Offene arme/CERST, Ark of the World, Action for Women, and Americans for Refugees in Crisis, among others.

What is really impressive to us is how Welcome Foundation donors gave - and so became connected - to refugees they will never meet. A person in one part of the world knowing they are helping a person in another part of the world in a dire situation, in need of the most basic necessities. We are glad to have been that connection for those who put their compassion into action. We are profoundly grateful for your trust and glad to know that so much good exists in the world and that we can act to help our fellow human beings.

Although Welcome Foundation will close, we will continue to personally help others - in our own communities and around the world - and know you will too.

10/18/2021

“But what Little Amal seems to do is take the experience of people who are quite brutally marginalised and put it in the centre. This is about goodwill. It is an opportunity for people to be sympathetic and imagine what it would be like to be her.”

https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2021/oct/18/threatened-puppet-refugee-little-amals-epic-walk?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook&fbclid=IwAR20Mgb59VAOMti2awbe-If0pN33O8HeU3HUSN5HEhvFJgNWS4iz2JlruGs

From being pelted with stones in Greece to receiving a papal welcome in Rome, the giant girl’s migrant trek from Syria to Manchester provoked powerful responses

09/19/2021

"'I want to go (to Boston), I want to stand on my own feet. I’m excited and I can’t wait to study and to become a doctor so that I can help others and my family. I want to be a cardiologist or maybe a neurosurgeon,” the girl stated."

https://greekreporter.com/2021/09/17/afghan-refugee-in-greece-awarded-scholarship-to-study-in-us/?
fbclid=IwAR0p_0AsWrHo7fILAzkvmfn4cVetKjIqcOPIlDSWSHZsGJX4rfbTXzqtFzY

Arezu, a young Afghan refugee living on the island of Lesvos, Greece, was awarded a scholarship to study in Boston recently.

08/24/2021

United. Helping.

07/29/2021

"Twenty-nine stateless athletes are hoping to raise awareness of the more than 80 million forcibly displaced people around the world when they compete as part of the special Refugee Olympic Team at the Tokyo Games."

https://www.sbs.com.au/news/the-olympics-refugee-team-is-a-symbol-of-hope-in-tokyo-here-s-who-s-in-the-squad?fbclid=IwAR2YNrNwDOc21m7V7BK_G2bz9iv4dcEbOo0FLvIFPbibHMT8o6l8B4TSALg

Twenty-nine stateless athletes are hoping to raise awareness of the more than 80 million forcibly displaced people around the world when they compete as part of the special Refugee Olympic Team at the Tokyo Games. Here, SBS News meets some of them.

06/27/2021

"Greece is prosecuting migrants on charges of people smuggling, and imposing heavy jail terms. Rights groups say many migrants are being unfairly accused and sentenced."

Greece is prosecuting migrants on charges of people smuggling, and imposing heavy jail terms. Rights groups say many migrants are being unfairly accused and sentenced.

06/09/2021

This is not OK.

"Out of the 180 MSF patients who had experienced self-harm, suicidal ideation or had attempted su***de, more than two thirds were children, the youngest of which was a six-year-old child."

Doctors Without Borders (MSF) revealed on Wednesday that 456 children in the migrant camp of Lesvos had to be treated for mental health problems between 2019 and 2020, including 32 unaccompanied minors.

05/17/2021

“I am proof that if you try to do something good for people, something good will happen to you. This is a fact.”

https://www.theguardian.com/food/2021/may/16/i-fled-syria-with-just-12-now-i-have-my-own-restaurant-in-soho?fbclid=IwAR1tX4Jra_vEKblLOqkBxHMpO-Hx7HVkKEGpOoMqh42oPFuyS-GlGWBQNFM

Imad Alarnab lost everything to the war. He never dreamed he could rebuild his restaurants in the UK

05/14/2021

“I went into a coffee shop and broke into tears,” she said. “They asked me where I was from, I said Syria, and they welcomed me. … I sat on a balcony with a woman and drank coffee, and she made me understand, in sign language, that I was now safe.”

Torn apart in the deadly chaos of an air raid, a Syrian family of seven has been reunited, against the odds, three years later at a refugee shelter in Greece's second city of Thessaloniki, a centuries-old melting point of cultures overlooking the Aegean Sea.

02/02/2021

"A writer, nursing assistant trainee and hairdresser are among the young women building lives and careers in Greece."

https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2021/1/29/starting-from-zero-greeces-female-refugees-try-again?fbclid=IwAR0jW-TW7qm1TzdiEqahfxuNgOqOipky23DRQZwYOfDzx7BaIEqBr9JvGtc

A writer, nursing assistant trainee and hairdresser are among the young women building lives and careers in Greece.

12/19/2020

Heartbreaking.

"One in three on Aegean isles have contemplated su***de amid EU containment policies, report reveals"

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/dec/17/thousands-refugees-mental-crisis-years-greek-islands?fbclid=IwAR3HmYFt0As80n5rx0U5Bmpa1lN0aCVzOcncQG-1hSMEaFlxQtSj571P-lo

One in three on Aegean isles have contemplated su***de amid EU containment policies, report reveals

11/18/2020

Good news!

The supplies for 6 months of Grow Gifts arrived at the CHEERing offices in Athens, Greece. CHEERing: Centre for Health Equity, Education & Research Int. Greece gives out the Grow Gifts to new mamas and babies at Grow Clinics they hold at the Elna Maternity Center, to celebrate babies' milestones. They contain age-appropriate clothing, feeding tools (cups, spoons, etc,) hygiene items, etc.

Thanks so much to Welcome Foundation donors for these needed supplies, to the Cheering Greece crew for compiling and distributing them, and the Elna Maternity Center staff for housing families in real need.

The Grow GiftsCHEERing continues their relationship with Welcome Foundation, which just donated a 6 month supply of clothing and age appropriate, code-compliant feeding tools from an Athens store t…