Gender Equality Greece Project #48306

Irida: Safe space for 650 women at risk in Greece

by Irida Women's Center

Project Report | Nov 25, 2022
Your solidarity CAN MAKE the DIFFERENCE!

By Lydia Siapardani | Project Leader

Mother and Daughter

Today is the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.

1 in 3 women in Europe has experienced physical and sexual violence.

Violence impoverishes women, their families, communities, and nations. Costs of violence against women in the EU are estimated to be almost 256€ billion.

Today and every day, we work in-depth with more than 650 women at risk to ensure they will not be left behind. Through protection, legal, and psychosocial support, skill-building, and employability services, we help them reshape their lives in safety and build a sustainable future for themselves and their children.

November 29th, 2022 is #GivingTuesday, kicking off the holiday season, where you can be part of positive change!

Τhis #GivingTuesday and for the next 30 days, we need your help to raise 10.000$, allowing us to maintain the sole community center for more than 650 women and 800 children in Northern Greece, open.

Thank you for embracing our vision for a world in which no woman is left behind by donating to our cause, sharing it with loved ones, and helping us raise awareness.

Your solidarity CAN MAKE the DIFFERENCE!

With love,

Ukrainian Community

Mother and Daughter

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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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May 20, 2022
Discover the Annual Report of 2021

By Lydia Siapardani | Head of Media and Fundraising

Face Painting to this amazing young lady!

Dear Supporter of Irida,

We hope you and your loved ones are safe and healthy!

With pride and joy, we would like to share with you our Annual Report for 2021

2021 has been a year with a challenging start in terms of the unprecedented effects of the pandemic and the future of our community. However, it is proven that when we join forces, we are able to make a big difference.

We are beyond grateful for the extraordinary generosity and invaluable support of all our donors, allowing us to remain on the frontline of protecting, empowering, and supporting refugee, asylum-seeking, migrant, and local women and children.

Thank you for embracing our mission and vision! Our community is thankful for your solidarity and generosity.

We appreciate and admire the determination and commitment of our partners, interns, volunteers, and supporters that helped us to deploy resources, contributing to our fight for establishing a more equal and inclusive society for socially and financially vulnerable women and children.

Special thanks to everyone contributing to creating this report, including the unique women of the Irida community. Your courage, strength, and resilience have been sources of inspiration.

Our team commits to continuing to work tirelessly and passionately to provide women and children with tailored, targeted, and timely solutions responding to their unique needs.

Apart from our Annual Report for 2021, we would love to share some further news about our project:

In case you missed it, Irida Women's Center has been selected to be among the four winning projects for the Ockenden International Prize. We are very thankful for the recognition that Irida received
Remaining loyal to our mission to protect, empower, and support the most vulnerable women and their children, we welcomed 55 Ukrainian single-parental families to Irida. We provide them with access to protection, legal aid, and skill-building services to alleviate the trauma they have suffered
Our community currently consists of more than 600 women from 37 countries and we work passionately and tirelessly to continue providing essential humanitarian welfare support.

Thank you for your invaluable and continuous support of our work. We could not achieve much without you standing by our side

Stay tuned to find out more about our work.

With love,

Lydia

Meet Inna , our Ukrainian community representative

Cooking and Sharing Delicious Iranian Food

Psychosocial Support - Writing the Irida Newspaper

Links:

Read our Annual Report for 2021

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