Velos Youth, Greece
LOCATION
Athens, Greece
DATES
2017 – 2024
SERVICE
Safe Space and Social Service
In 2017 RYS founded Velos Youth in Athens, Greece, in order to hire local staff and begin the journey of nurturing an autonomous organisation that would eventually be entirely locally led, and independent of RYS. This journey became complete at the end of 2024.
Velos Youth supports unaccompanied young people on the move to access their rights, in order to restart and rebuild their lives. It achieves this via a holistic approach, providing access to legal, social and psychological support through an open safe space and supported accommodation. It focuses on young people building lives integrated within Greek society, to ensure long term stability and opportunities.
Today there are 1,000+ unaccompanied children in Greece. Upon turning 18 they are excluded from secure housing, integration services and guardianship. Wrapped in a legal limbo, they face significant barriers to integration including long asylum procedures; housing shortages; restricted access to medical care, education and employment. Velos’ activities centre around addressing these barriers and promoting wellbeing, social development and self-reliance; young people supported are treated as autonomous agents, with change fostered via the mentorship of qualified professional staff.
The Velos Youth Centre provides a relaxed and welcoming safe place for young people to visit during the day.
The space offers basic services such as food and showers, and facilitates, through a team of local professionals, access to specialist NGO and state-run services. Caseworkers take a holistic approach to the wellbeing of young people, making internal and external referrals to protection, asylum, accommodation, employability and education services; protecting and advocating for their rights.
In 2021 Velos Youth also launched its Housing Integration Project. The project continues to complement the Velos Youth holistic care model and benefits young people already accessing other Velos Youth services. Through the programme young people are supported by a range of local professionals to find work, organise their finances and subsequently source stable private accommodation. The project uses a number of activities, arranged under the following two pillars, to achieve its mission to support integration and inclusion of young people, and to allow them to live in autonomy.
Velos Youth remains an essential sanctuary for displaced youth in Athens.