Gender Equality Greece Project #48306

Irida: Safe space for 650 women at risk in Greece

by Irida Women's Center

Project Report | Sep 16, 2022
Find Out What Amazing Things Happened In Summer

By Lydia Siapardani | Head of Media and Fundraising

Writing our wishes to a bottle

Dear Friend and Supporter of the Irida community,

On behalf of the Irida family, we wish you had a nice, resting, and joyful summertime with your loved ones.

As you might have heard, things can be hectic in Greece during the summer months. However, the Irida Women's Center remained on top of it, working hard to protect, empower, and support our community.

Within the summer period:

We witnessed our community growing and flourishing - rising above 2021, we had 490 women registered to the center. In mid-2022, this number increased; we are currently supporting more than 660 women and their children with access to critical focused, and rigorous solutions.
In addition, we welcomed 80 Ukrainian refugee women to the center who escaped their country to seek safety in Greece.
55 refugee and asylum-seeking women received 76 different legal services.

“You are the only one that helped me these 2 years in Thessaloniki. Thanks to you now my 2 years old son has an asylum seeker card and is able to have public health care aid and receive cash assistance”
A 31-year-old woman from Somalia.

210 women accessed our protection services including access to medication, healthcare, food and non-food items, connections with actors in the city, and provision of information. 126 were single mothers, 7 were pregnant women, 5 were women with mental health issues, and 3 women were victims of GBV.
25 women received psychosocial support through artistic and recreational activities to alleviate the trauma they have suffered. Among our psychosocial support sessions were two visits to the seaside:

“I came to the seaside to overcome my fear. I had faith that I could overcome my fear thanks to God. I had the willingness to rise above my fear. Everybody’s presence and support encouraged me to try to get into the water. I felt great joy, hope, and courage”
An Arabic-speaking community member with a traumatic experience related to water that was caused during her journey.
She was empowered to battle against her fear in the PSS sessions “Together we build the ship of hope”
She felt so good about herself that at the end of the trip she would not get out of the water.

Summing up, we would like to thank you for your continuous support to our work. Embracing our mission makes us inspired.

Thank you so much.

Stay tuned until our next report.

With love,

Lydia

Women visiting the seaside during a PSS session

Celebrating Khatereh's Birthday

Greek lessons for the Ukrainian women

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