Athens Mayor George Kaminis today visited the Athens Coordination Center for Migrant and Refugee issues and met representatives of NGOs and other organisations which have joined forces under the coordination of the Municipality of Athens to improve service delivery for migrants and refugees in Athens.
"The city of Athens is proactively coordinating the voluntary and non-governmental organizations active in the field of migrant refugee support, aiming at social integration in the city", stressed the Mayor of Athens, Mr. George Kaminis, welcoming the representatives of these organizations and thanking founding donor, Stavros Niarchos Foundation for their decisive support.
The Center, set up and operating since June 2017 with an exclusive donation from the Stavros Niarchos Foundation and with the coordination of the Athens Partnership, aims to coordinate efforts between the municipality of Athens and all those active in the field of support and integration of migrants and refugees.
“The donation for the establishment of the Athens Coordination Center for Migrant and Refugee issues is part of the large donation of €10 million from the Stavros Niarchos Foundation to the municipality of Athens, aiming at strengthening the capital's residents faced with a period of crisis, but also of regeneration opportunities. Initiatives such as these, which highlight the possibilities for public-private partnerships for the benefit of the wider community, are now more necessary than ever", said Myrto Xanthopoulou, a representative of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation's Grant Management.
The Athens Coordination Center for Migrant and Refugee issues has 75 member bodies with more than 200 delegates. The Center includes representatives from international and Greek NGOs, international organizations, immigrant communities, as well as municipal agencies. The main common goal is to develop a coordinated response both for dealing with new potential emergencies, as well as for the smooth integration of the immigrant and refugee population in the city of Athens.
Building a strong partnership network
Recently, the Center led the signing of 3 Memoranda of Understanding with other municipalities in Greece, with the aim of exchanging know-how and support for similar projects at a local level. So far, Memoranda have been signed with the municipalities of Thessaloniki, Trikala and Tripoli.
Through the work of the Center’s Technical Committees, gaps and needs have been identified and 65 proposals for pilot actions have already been produced with the aim of meeting the needs of migrants and refugees in areas such as housing, education, health, labor market integration and legal support.
At the same time, the Center has organized seminars, presentations and workshops in collaboration with important institutions. For example, the Center coordinates the participation of its members in the Athens - World Book Capital 2018 and is co-organizer of the Refugee Code Week initiative, through which more than 350 young refugees have been trained to date on the basic principles of programming.