Gender Equality Greece Project #32077

Self-Defense and Yoga for Refugee Women on Lesvos

by Starfish Foundation

Project Report | Jan 24, 2020
New Year, new classes, new teacher!

By Melinda McRostie | Founder

Yoga a big part of what we are doing this year at Starfish.

The classes are held both in OpenSpace, Mytilene and at our container inside the Moria Camp.

Our yoga classes give the participants a chance to relax and escape from the stresses of living in the overcrowded Moria camp.

In order for people to attend the classes in Mytilene Starfish provides bus tickets to all the participants and your help and support allows these popular classes to thrive and continue.

With more people arriving on the Island of Lesvos every week, the importance of activities increases – as is the need for your support.

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Jan 17, 2020
Starfish's reflections for 2019

By Melinda McRostie | Founder

Nov 19, 2019
Update Self-Defense & Empowerment class

By Marieke Vrins | Project Manager

Practicing their new skills

We are very happy to announce that a new group of (young) women finished the ‘Self-Defense and Empowerment Program’ last week! For the past 5 weeks they came to the class with an amazing enthusiasm, curiosity, but most of all a lot of motivation. The motivation to learn about defending themselves (physical and emotionally), to learn about ways to deal with the challenging circumstances and finding ways to increase their self-confidence, setting boundaries and finding their inner power.

One of the first students that finished the course, is the 22 year old Afghan woman, Nazanin. From the start of the course she was one of the most enthusiastic students. She was never afraid to share her story, struggles and her insecurities. By opening up she was inspiring all the other (young) women in the group and motivating them to empower each other by sharing their experiences and helping each other.

Nazanin: "In the past I wasn't able to defend myself and I was scared for a lot of things. Always someone had to come with me. Sometimes people told me I cannot do something, or that I am ugly.. I couldn't defend my emotions, my beliefs, myself. It is very awful for a girl to not have self-confidence. But now I have a very good self-confidence, because I can defend myself physically and emotionally. I have a suggestion for all women and girls: please try it! Learn about defending your emotions, your body, your beliefs. Love yourself!"

I am very proud of all these young women that were willing to come every week, full of questions and eager to learn. Proud of all these young women that were opening up every week more and more and willing to share their stories, insecurities and anxieties, to learn from each other, help and empower each other!

To continue our project, and support more women and girls, we can really use your help. By supporting us with a donation we can make sure we can continue our classes inside Moria Camp and even expend our classes to Mytilene centre, to reach more women and girls!

Thank you!

Nazanin and Yeganeh received their certificates!

"Stay away!"

Links:

Starfish Foundation

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