Non-Governmental Association

Veroia

26 Ant. Kamara str., Veroia

Greece

Vasileios Tiliakos

Athirma (https://www.athirma.com/?lang=en) is a civil non-profit organization founded in 2018 in Greece. Athirma exists to educate people regardless of identity to appreciate their full human potential and acknowledge their social responsibility.

We provide services which enhance the physical, intellectual and emotional development of individuals, organizations and communities through the prism of Social Pedagogy.

Athirma is a newly-formed organization but its members have already established a strong footprint in the fields of Social Work, Pedagogy and Social Education. Its lead members played a significant role in the implementation of Social Pedagogy in UK since 2013 both in residential and foster care. In Greece, Athirma is the only organization which promotes Social Pedagogy in the everyday life of individuals and communities. Our models are being implemented successfully in children homes, shelters, schools, fostering services, refugee camps, safe zones and creative groups of parents and children in Europe.

In 2019, with our latest pilot project, Nature’s Common Third, a project funded by Together Moving Forward, we showcased that the Common Third model, a model which was used until then for establishing and strengthening dyadic relationships of the professional and the individual, could be used as a means of integration for young people coming from the refugee and the host communities. For Athirma, integration is a two-way process of developing skills which help the individuals to learn to live in a diverse society.

Since 2019 Athirma focuses on integration initiatives, bringing people together from the refugee and the host community with the ambition of co-creating a shared future. Athirma developed a philosophy and a model of working with people towards the above mentioned goal and has trained people on that direction. Athirma has already established a pool of professionals trained in the approach or expressing an interest in following our practices and has already attracted the interest of the academic community in Greece and abroad. We are also closely related with the European Students’ Union which has funded our pilot integration initiative, Nature’s Common Third.

Regarding the dissemination and exploitation of the project results we believe that through our virtual and physical network the project’s results will be communicated accordingly. The project and its results could also be included in our training seminars of professionals working with refugees and youth as best practices. Finally, they could offer new possibilities of further collaboration with our association and the associated partners as well.