By Cecilia Balbo | Fundraiser
Since our last update, the CRIBS community has been filled with new life and major milestones! In February, we celebrated the arrival of a beautiful newborn baby (wasn’t Babette’s stillborn?), bringing immense joy to us all. Our housing program has been operating at absolute full capacity to meet the urgent needs of mothers and children. In April, we welcomed a single mother and her three children, including a newborn, arriving safely from Malakasa camp. We also stepped in to provide emergency shelter to a Sudanese family with three children who had been surviving on the streets; thanks to a vital network of partner NGOs, we are collectively supporting them through this transitional period.
Behind the scenes, our casework team has worked tirelessly. A massive focus throughout April and May was dedicated to navigating the complex, Greek-only administrative system to submit nursery applications, ensuring our littlest community members can access early education.
Our Community Space and partner collaborations have remained vibrant hubs for connection, education, and healing. In February, we partnered with Women’s Healthcare On the Move (WHOM) for an essential workshop on menstrual health. Art and creative growth also took center stage this season. Our mothers attended a powerful art exhibition by Georgia Lale focused on gender-based violence prevention, followed by an immersive visit to the ANKAA fashion exhibition, which beautifully highlights the life stories of refugee tailors. Later, AMURTEL hosted a wonderful storytelling workshop for our French-speaking mothers, while Action for Women hosted a hands-on earring-making workshop and vital sessions on workers' rights, women's rights, and healthcare. We made sure to balance hard work with joy: after the Easter break, we celebrated spring with a lively outdoor picnic and egg hunt, where the kids played hide-and-seek, spotted local turtles, and shared gyros and chocolate treats.
Meanwhile, our language program is thriving. We continue to offer one-to-one English sessions for absolute beginners alongside weekly group classes, creating a supportive environment where women build the language skills needed for their futures.
Ultimately, helping families make great strides toward independent living remains at the very heart of our mission. This period saw deeply moving milestones across our flats: several women successfully moved out of our housing system into their own independent accommodations, and another family successfully relocated to the islands after the father secured a stable job opportunity. Our casework team was actively involved in physically moving one of our long-term families into their new independent apartment, a beautiful milestone of stability that your generosity made possible.
Thank you for being a part of making it all happen!
By Veronica Lopes da Silva | Fundraiser
By Helene Bauwens | Fundraiser
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