“Amsterdam – Athens: Building capacity for supporting refugees” is a capacity building programme offering the opportunity to staff / volunteers of initiatives working to support the needs of refugees in Greece to:
1. Attend a 3-day training in Athens conducted by experts from the Dutch Council for Refugees, one of Europe’s largest organisations supporting refugees. The organisation who attended the training:
- Campfire Innovation
- ECHO100PLUS
- Gefyres
- Options Foodlab
- Social Hackers
- Starfish Foundation
- We Need Books
- Intervolve
- Project Elea
- Zaatar NGO (Orange House)
- Exile Room
- Refugee Legal Support (RLS)
2. Participate in a 3-day study trip to Amsterdam, where they had the opportunity to visit and conduct meetings with various NGOs or other organizations which have developed good practices in working with refugees. Νamely:
- Municipality of Amsterdam
- Dutch Council for Refugees
- Makers Unite
- In my back yard
- Foundation for Refugee Students
- Refugee Talent Hub
- Refugee Company
- Takecarebnb
- de Meevart
- Movement on the Ground
3. Enter a competition to receive a micro grant of 2.500 EUR, in order to conduct further capacity building activities within their own organization/group, putting into practice what they have learned from the training, and also receive free mentoring and consultancy from Social Dynamo.
These organizations are:
1. Starfish Foundation
The project of Starfish Foundation is named”Bringing Awareness through Media Production”. The funding covered the purchase of equipment and the production of a video aiming at raising awareness regarding the refugee crisis on Lesvos island and the fundraising processes.
The following clip was created during the programme:
2. Campfire Innovation
This project is about the creation of an e-platform named “Impact Platform”, where 15 members (grassroots) of the organisation upload and update, on a monthly basis, information regarding their performance, their impact and the quality of the provided services. Thus, a clear picture of the small and smart organisations in the field of refugee crisis in Greece since 2015 has been created. Aim of the project is to empower organisations to showcase their work to their team, their supporters, possible donors and their partners.
3. Project Elea
Following the capacity building sessions taken place at the beginning of the programme, this organisation spotted the need of securing their financial stability, and set it as a priority. Thus, the grant was used for the creation of products (T-shirts, bags, bracelets) to be sold during their events to their supporters and volunteers.
