Tag Archive for: refugees

Interview with BRF: an NGO for people on the move

How to Empower People on the Move

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At Stone Soup we are happy to cowork with Boat Refugee Foundation. BRF assists and empowers people on the move or stuck in remote parts of Europe. Vicky, manager of the Athens program, talked to us about the ways the Netherlands-based NGO works.

BRF operates two programs in Greece. The one in Lesvos provides medical and psychosocial support. The one in Athens provides psychological support and group empowering activities to adult refugees & migrants, while it provides advocacy for a fairer asylum policy.

BRF’s goal is to motivate, empower, inform and link people on the move. The team consists of a psychologist, a social worker and a volunteer mental health professional. It offers various forms of psychosocial support, helping service users to take control of their lives and claim their rights.

IS IT TABOO TO ASK FOR ASSISTANCE?

“Many BRF beneficiaries who come from different cultures and backgrounds are not familiar with western terms like “mental health”. By pointing out the importance of self-care we try to destigmatize the seek for support.  Therefore, we work together with the service users on the life skills and resources they could develop to cope with difficulties, to feel more empowered and to make the first steps towards personal recovery”

HELPING THE HELPERS!

We know that BRF trains members of other NGOs, since we’ve seen them organize training events in our offices. As Vicky explained, the aim is to introduce basic mental health and psychosocial concepts to also empower non-mental-health professionals operating in the field. In this light, we connect them with practices and resources that increase their awareness helping them approach relevant cases more effectively.

HOW DOES COWORKING HELP?

Although we have a private office, we feel part of a bigger community with a variety of professionals around us. As a result, we both decompress while we connect with people from completely different areas. Observing their work and problem-solving routines can be of great support to us. It offers new ways to approach decisions concerning your own work and see things from a different angle”.

Diving into social issues and public awareness: We spoke to Nicole to find out more about her impressive work and background

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Nicole is a Social Scientist and she is currently working for the Library Without Borders NGO. LWB deals with the most vulnerable populations by giving them access to education, information and culture. LWB is based in France whereas Nicole is working in Athens as a program manager for several actions aimed for refugees in Greece.

                  Athens Greece Eleonas camp                                                                     Athens Greece Eleonas camp

She got her degree in Boston in the field of Environmental Sciences and International Relations. She also holds a master in Human Rights from the University of Sydney in Australia. During her studies in the US she worked in a law office in the environmental department.  She assisted in cases concerning environmental issues and learned a lot about how someone could handle such cases. She was also present to legal affairs in court and helped with the bureaucracy. While she was a master student in Sri Lanka she worked in the organization CPA (Central Policy Alternatives) and did a research about social issues and specifically how people with HIV’s virus live in the society and the racism they face. She traveled all over the country and she wrote down her findings that were published later by CPA.

She has also volunteered for many causes. She participated in the organization Invisible Children. The main goal of this organization is to make people aware for the civil war of Uganda and stop the Lords Resistance Army of Joseph Kony. She worked there with child soldiers and she tried to raise awareness and communicate with them. Furthermore, she worked in an orphanage at Gana and she increased public awareness for sickness of malaria and taught English to little children.

It’s a pleasure to cowork with Nicole and we would like to give her a warm welcome to the Stone Soup family.

Learn more about LWB at Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram

Interview: A modern Odyssea

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The project of Jai Mexis, one of our residents at Stone Soup is called Odyssea. Odyssea is a social enterprise designing solutions for environmental and humanitarian problems in Greece.

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