Great!
See you soon!
And do not forget about us 
It’s lovely to see you “next door neighbours” connect in the context of a global community! Let’s stay in touch, though, there are many people in the Edgeryders community, all over Europe, trying to help out, healing our ailing societies. @Alex_Levene is an obvious example, but there are others. The potential for mutual learning is obvious.
Literally next door!
Me, @ChristinSa @To_Steki @Positive-Voice and maybe some others, we (or our projects) are in the same neighbourhood. So, when @Ybe and @Alex Levene visit Thessaloniki, we can arrange a creative meeting! Thanx to this community!
I am so looking forward to meeting you all !
Visiting in January
@ChristinSa @To_Steki @Positive-Voice @Aravella Salonikidou
I am planning on coming to Thessalonki in the middle of January. (15th-19th) Part of the trip will be touch volunteers and get to know what is being done there by Help Refugees (who i worked with in Calais this year). I’d also love to meet up with you and see your projects. If anyone has any suggestions for cheap places to stay whilst we’re out there please let me know.
Feeling inspired to join.
Between Natalia having gone this summer, @Ybe just now, and you, well… we should all go. Also ping @Jenny_Gkiougki if she will be around.
You are welcome
@Noemi and everyone else you are more than welcome to also join! Would be great to meet in person and exchange information and ideas! I am sure @Jenny_Gkiougki would love that as well
Great news
@Alex_Levene this is great! I and people from our collective will be happy to meet with you and discuss about our projects and your experience in Calais. I will also try to see if I can find some cheap options to suggest for your stay. Looking forward to meeting you in Thessaloniki!
for sure, let’s keep in touch everyone!
Thank you
Many thanks for the kind words @ChristinSa, i’m really glad that my words touched you.
It’s interesting also that it made you think of camps at places like Idomeni. The team who manage the warehouse in Calais and do a lot of the groundwork on the Jungle camp is led by the British charity organisation HelpRefugees. They also did a lot of work in Idomeni during the last year as well.
I believe they have now moved their operations in Greece to Thessaloniki, so perhaps you have come across them and their team members? I saw that they recently opened a new distribution warehouse there.
I have been talking to their team and i’m trying to find a time in early January when i can come out to Greece and talk to them/see what they are doing there. I hope that during this time i might also be able to meet some of the great people and organisations that have shared their stories on Edgeryders (@To-Steki, @Aravella Salonikidou, @Pavlos)
Good to hear about HelpRefugees and to have you here in Greece
@Alex_Levene good to learn about the work of HelpRefugees, I have not come across them so far but will look for more information and will try to contact their team in Greece to see what they are doing. I am very much in favour of refugee self-organisation or projects involving the solidarity movement and refugees in horizontal relationships (althoug I am aware that this is not always easy to achieve) but I can see and understand that some of the more formal orgs are also being organised in a way that allows quite a lof of self-organisation or self-management in practice and are doing a lot of great work on the ground. I have seen this already with some organisations working in the camps around Greece.
It will be great also to have you here in Greece! Please let me know when this happens and I will arrange to meet you with our group in order to share our experiences and other valuable information.
Great inspiring stories
Dear @Noemi thanks for the encouraging words and suggestions! I know about the great work of ‘RefugeesWork’ initiative as we collaborate with them through FairCoop on a global level. I am not sure they know about our local call center project in Thessaloniki, but I am glad that this article and your comment gave the opportunity for this ‘connection’. I hope more people continue to share their inspiring stories in order to keep discovering common paths and shared visions.
love it
I find this a very hopeful story
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because of the involvement of refugees themselves - it is so empowering to be able to do something to improve your life, to have work, to have a life, an income and to be part of a community
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because of the ‘amplification’ factor - you put a lot of energy in connecting different initiatives and projects and that is what we need to create general and global change
thx
ybe from traumatour (soon in thessaloniki)
Thanx Ybe, i agree
@ybe thanks for your kind words, i agree with what you are saying about these two factors and this is what i tried to highlight in my article! Your traumatour project also seems super interesting and it is very exciting to see that more people are planning to visit Thessaloniki with their projects in the future! I am in contact with people working in alternative health and spiritual health projects here in Greece so I could put you in contact with them, if you are interested.
great
Your plans sound great, let’s speak again closer to the time that you come and see which groups/places/people you are interested in meeting here related to your project. Your services could be very beneficial to refugees so we can get you in contact with groups working with refugees or the social solidarity clinic of Thessaloniki which is another great initiative working on a community voluntary basis.
“solidarity”
This is a fascinating project. I have alerted a close friend, an American journalist who has done important radio and print reporting on the refugees in Greece, to come have a look at this topic becfause of this specific project and because of the networking going on in this conversation.
One question: by “solidarity” do you mean a formal association or something more loosely arranged through a kind of self-identification?
glad to learn about R2R concept.
It is a beautiful way of reaching out to the world and letting people know how , living in a confined environment(camps) can be challenging.If we are our brothers and sisters keepers, then we will make out time from our very busy schedule to donate and help millions in those camps. He cared enough to share this story, so please y’all, return the favor by giving whch will go a long way of changing a life. " sharing is caring", Giving is transforming and investing in other peoples lives.The best investment, is in the life of another human being. Thanks for sharing
About solidarity
Hey @johncoate and @Gentlewest, I just saw these last messages of yours and I am sorry I haven’t replied earlier. @johncoate Solidarity can arise in many ways and forms, and both formal associations and informal collectives have offered amazing solidarity solutions in many ways. For me what matters is not formality or non-formality, but the level of participation and the style of governance. In our case, the R2R call center is an informal collective, supported by the open global cooperative ecosystem of FairCoop on the global level, which is also a self-organised project with a global community involved. @Gentlewest thank you for the nice words, I couldn’t agree more.
yes please !
I would like to have some more contacts in Thessaloniki; I still have room in my agenda (december) to help a couple of organisations
f.ex with trauma info sessions for the helpers (basic trauma information, interventions and exercises) or by helping develop on ongoing 'how-to-cope-with-trauma-practice, or…
thx, ybe
@christinsa I enjoyed reading your article. FB suggested this competition when I shared it.
http://innovateforrefugees.mitefarab.org/en/site/index
I thought maybe volunteers and refugees can work on developing solutions for problems they are facing together, and participate with a chance to win.
And now what? After almost one year.