By Lydia Siapardani | Head of Fundraising & Communications
While her 34th birthday approaches, Athina has a birthday wish which seems simple yet profound: to find a home that allows pets.“Because I have two cats and a dog,” she says with a smile.
It is a small sentence that carries deep meaning. Only a year and a half ago, Athina was living in extreme poverty and homelessness, without any network of support. Now, the fact that she can proudly say, "I can sustain myself, pay my rent, and take care of 3 pets while being in a position to afford a move", is an extraordinary achievement of strength and resilience.
Athina's story is unique, but sadly, it is not the only one. Today, nearly 3 million people in Greece live at risk of poverty and social exclusion, and more than 1 in 4 women face extreme socio-economic vulnerabilities. In parallel, unemployment affects women disproportionately. Greece holds the lowest employment rate for women in the European Union, and 64% of the total registered unemployed population are women. The situation becomes even more complex for women with lower professional qualifications who face additional barriers to their efforts to access the labor market. Having almost a decade of field experience, we have witnessed how women with limited professional skills struggle to access jobs that provide a steady income and a dignified livelihood.
Amid these harsh realities, we implement our Livelihoods Program that has a clear goal: to promote dignified living through stable income for vulnerable women via tangible opportunities for change.
Athina started to attend our skill-building opportunities a few months after entering the Housing and Employment Program, a national program providing housing and reintegration support for people in homelessness. She intended to finally obtain the Certificate of Competency in English she had dreamed of since childhood, but never had the chance to pursue.
“I was very anxious about the exams,” she recalls. “While attending classes, I was working long hours and irregular shifts. My teacher, Claire, was incredibly supportive. She sent me extra materials and encouraged me every step of the way. On the day of the exam, I had to go to work in the morning and take the oral test right after. I was sure I hadn’t done well. But when I received the results, I couldn’t believe it! I passed the oral part with a perfect 100% and even got a congratulatory letter from the University of Michigan.”
Beyond language and vocational training, we focus on developing transferable workplace soft skills, abilities that strengthen confidence, communication, and employability. Through individual and group career counseling sessions, Athina learned to write her CV, prepare for interviews, handle difficult questions, and, most importantly, recognize her own worth.
“I learned about my rights as a worker and how to stand up for myself,” she says.
Today, Athina’s life looks very different.
“It’s not that everything is easy,” she reflects, “but I’m not the same person anymore. I’ve changed and so has the way I see myself. I have a job, a home, and my pets. For now, I’m fine,” she smiles. “But my dream is bigger. I want to learn more languages, get my driver’s license, and one day open my own small business making knitted and embroidered crafts. It’s my passion and my way of expressing myself.”
For Athina, this was more than a livelihood program. It was, as she says, “a bridge to opportunity and self-confidence.” And it was even more meaningful because it came from Irida, “a place that stood by me through the hardest moments of my life, with understanding, trust, and safety.”
Her journey is more than a personal success. It is a reminder that behind every statistic, there is a woman with dreams to pursue.
That is the true impact of our work; it has meaningfully transformed the lives of socially and economically vulnerable women in Thessaloniki, offering them the chance to rebuild their lives, find hope, and believe in themselves again.
By Lydia Siapardani | Head of Fundraising & Communications
By Lydia Siapardani | Head of Fundraising and Communications
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