The first Refugee Week Greece cultural festival was completed with success

The first Refugee Week Greece cultural festival, an initiative of the Athens Comics Library in collaboration with the British organization Counterpoints Arts UK, that was held with the support of the Municipality of Athens, was completed with particular success.

For a whole week (June 20-26) organizations, civil society groups and communities across Greece offered open activities inviting us to change the narrative around refugee, and not only, communities, to share our stories and to heal together important challenges of modern societies.

During this week, 95 actions were organized in 16 cities with more than 1500 participants around healing, mutual care and the human capacity to restart in all areas that affect us.

The official opening of Refugee Week Greece took place on Tuesday, June 21 at the Serafion of the Municipality of Athens. Representatives of the Athens Comics Library, the Municipality of Athens, the Special Secretariat for the Protection of Unaccompanied Minors, Neil Richard MacKinnon Gaiman – the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees – and Counterpoints Arts opened the festival and participated in an open discussion with the audience on the importance of mutual care. Attendees had the opportunity to watch the digital interview given by the popular author and UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador, exclusively for Refugee Week Greece, as well as a series of artistic activities.

Refugee Week Greece concluded with an event focused on inclusion and diversity on Sunday, June 26, at the Impact Hub in the heart of Athens. The UNICEF Office in Greece, the Network for Children’s Right, the Athens Comics Library and U-Report Greece highlighted the new voices that are making a difference in their communities and through their work, promoting the message of mutual respect. During the event, the U-Report Greece platform and the results of the poll on the Social Integration of immigrants and refugees were presented.

This was followed by a panel discussion around the social inclusion of refugees and immigrants and the importance of mutual care. For more information contact us [email protected] / +30 698 30 50 292/ Instagram: @refugeeweekgreece & Facebook: @refugeeweekgreece

 

Snapshots from the “Be a musician for a day” action implemented by the multicultural “Kypseli Orchestra” of El Sistema Greece, in collaboration with the ACCMR – Athens Coordination Center of the Municipality of Athens for Migrant and Refugee Issues and the Special Secretariat for the Protection of Unaccompanied Minors of the Ministry of Immigration and Asylum, in the context of Refugee Week 2022.