Refugee Rights Greece Project #52352

Habibi and Sport with Refugees (HSR)

by Soup and Socks e.V.

Project Report | Dec 4, 2022
A look back at 2022

By Maeve O'Gorman | Project Coordinator

Our new gym mural!

Hello friends,

We are coming to the end of an amazing year at Habibi and Sport with Refugees. It has not been without its challenges; the war in Ukraine severely impacted our funding in the first half of the year; the camps dwindling population; the construction of the wall around the camp and other measures by Greek police to curtail human rights of refugees.

However, in the last 2 months, there have been many new arrivals to all of the camps around Ioannina, and our activities have started to fill up again, and there is more life and new energy in the project. It has been very difficult for new arrivals to adjust to living in such a remote place with very few services, compared to Lesvos or Athens. It has really shown how important it is that people have a space to go to chill out, practice sport together and get out of the camp for a few hours. The community of teachers, students and volunteers is a very supportive one, and having refugees in the lead of our activities makes outreach to the camp so much more straightforward and welcoming.

In other news, this is my final report for you all. After almost 1 and a half years, I am leaving Ioannina and moving to Lesvos, where I will continue working with Yoga and Sport with Refugees. This project is one of the most amazing things I have ever been part of. It has really shown me how we can do things differently, and flip the script on a lot of the norms in humanitarian work. It has never been perfect but we always looking for ways to improve and grow, to amplify and make space for the voices of refugees to be the most important in the organisation.

I am also very happy to say that Lena, who will take over as Project Coordinator, is an amazing woman who has been supporting our volleyball teachers for 6 months, on top of her work as Precious Plastic supervisor for our partner Habibi.Works. She knows the project inside out and for sure will do a great job.

Finally, I want to of course thank you for your continued support of our work. In really difficult circumstances, your donation allows people to create connections and build community, making refugees more resilient. And as always, we would be eternally grateful to you if you would consider sharing our project with your network. I have attached the monthly reports of the last 2 months to get a more in-depth feel for the goings on in the wider community of Yoga and Sport with Refugees.

In solidarity,

Maeve

Volleyball tournament in November

Our amazing Sports Day in October!

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Aug 10, 2022
Summer Updates

By Maeve O'Gorman | Project Coordinator

Team trip, June 2022

Hello!

I hope you are enjoying a relaxing summer, wherever you are (unless you are Irish where it is already officially Autumn). Before we get to all the updates from Ioannina, I would firstly like to once again thank you so much for your continued support of our project. Times are really tough for organisations supporting refugees in Greece right now, so your donation really makes all the difference.

In good news, many of our incredible teachers received their papers in the last few months, and have moved on from Greece with their families. This is of course bittersweet for us, but we are happy that they are finally out of the limbo of the Greek asylum system. And, leaving Habibi and Sport never means leaving our community. Our former teachers Rahmat and Eisa are now leading the team setting up the new Yoga and Sport project in Paris, teaching boxing, fitness and running, Payman and Sakineh have classes in their camps in Germany teaching boxing and yoga respectively, and all the team in Germany have been making the most of the cheap summer public transport to have Habibi and Sport meet-ups regularly in different cities. This constant movement and change in the team in Ioannina also leaves space for us to give leadership opportunities to more refugees, who bring fresh ideas and energy to the project.

One of the most difficult goodbyes was for our amazing Community Coordinator, Fereshte, who left Greece with her family just this week. Her work in encouraging and empowering more women to take part in the project, meant that for the last 2 months, there were more women than men in our activities, which is a first for any Yoga and Sport project.

We now say hello to our new Coordinator, Emily, who is from Scotland. She has a background in Human Rights Law and has been working in Jordan with displaced people for the last 6 months, and previously in Geneva supporting Human Rights Defenders.

I have attached the last three monthly reports of Yoga and Sport with Refugees, so you can get a taster for all the activities happening across the 4 YSR projects.

Finally, I unfortunately have to reiterate the crisis in funding for our project. Many public and private donors have stopped funding projects in Greece as - understandably - money continues to be funneled into supporting the Ukrainian relief effort. If you appreciate and value the work that we do, please share our story with your friends and family and encourage them to start a monthly donation, however small. Every euro helps. As we approach the 1 year anniversary of the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan, see renewed violence in DRC and ongoing conflict in Kurdistan it is important to remember that the people we work with also need support. The Greek government is doing its best to curb human rights of non-Ukrainian refugees, to push their needs under the rug, to leave them to die in small boats without engines in the Aegean, to hide them behind walls, and in closed camps on remote islands. NGOs are trying to fill the gaps intentionally created with Greek and EU money. We are just one of the organisations providing access to safe spaces, to leadership positions and to community. We urgently need more donations to continue our work.

So please tell people, put us in contact with people in media, get an influencer to shout out our page, contact us to start a fundraising event, anything you can do is so so so appreciated.

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Apr 6, 2022
Monthly Report of Yoga and Sport with Refugees

By Maeve O'Gorman | Project Coordinator

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