Empower 500 refugees in Greece with tools & skills

Many things have happened in the workshop areas of Habibi.Works in the past weeks. In the beginning of September, the project team started implementing a new appointment system that enabled a specific number of men and women to use the workshops safely during the times of the novel coronavirus. 

On October 6, the entire camp of Katsikas was unexpectedly put under lockdown without any confirmed corona case within the camp. This measure, justified by the authorities as a mean of protection of the camp residents from potential infections, was partly lifted on October 26th. 

For now, one member of each family is allowed to leave the camp between 7am and 7pm to go shopping, to go to the pharmacy, to access health care, to go to work or to meet with friends in the nearby city. It is unclear as of now whether children are allowed to attend school, as they were before the lockdown.

One of the first things several residents of the camp did this morning was to visit one of the workshop areas of Habibi.Works - to repair bicycles, to use the sewing machines, make use of the wood workshop or the IT area. After 21 days of lockdown, both the residents of the camp and the project team were relieved to see the lockdown being partly lifted. We hope that this is the first of many necessary steps to provide people living in refugee camps with access to education and integration pathways and to treat them with equal measures as the rest of society. 

In times as difficult as these it is more important than ever to create spaces in which people can flourish. Without your support, the project Habibi.Works could not exist. Thank you very much for your contribution!