In Athens and at the same time outside of Athens, next to the airport there is an area called Porto Rafti.

There you can get the chance to live and work together in a training center with 17 more young people from all over Europe.

Learn how to develop and deliver non-formal learning activities for youth and people with mental disabilities and create an intervention to the local community by transforming Porto Rafti to a Port of Call.

If you want to sail with us read the infopack below since it contains some very useful information about the project.

Who we are

Non-profit organization was founded in 2005.

The main objectives of the organization are to provide psychosocial support, combat social exclusion of vulnerable groups, provide psychological and counseling services, create equal opportunities and new perspectives for vulnerable groups of the population, promote mental health, psychiatric care in the Community based on the principles of Social Psychiatry and Psychosocial Rehabilitation, provision of specialized psychiatric services and psychoeducational interventions to standards of the World Health Organization.

Our Vision is to create a world with no discrimination and no injustice through education and support.

Our Values are solidarity, cooperation, support & care.

our target group

The total number of beneficiaries of the organization is calculated up to 380,000 people since 2006. IASIS NGO has been providing support to anyone in need for 15 years:

• Children and Young people
• People with mental health problems
• Homeless people
• Women victims of violence
• Asylum Seekers/Migrants/Refugees
• Professionals on the Humanitarian and Educational sector

What we do

The activities of the organization are multidisciplinary and they focus on supporting our vision.

• 2 BOARDING HOUSES with a total of 30 residents with mental health problems
• 2 LONG-STAY UNITS protected semi-autonomous sheltered residential apartments
• 1 SHORT-STAY UNIT in which people with mental health problems are accommodated for a short period
• 1 DAY CENTER which is an open structure of therapeutic, educational and counseling services
• 7 YOUTH CENTERS – called “CONNECT YOUR CITY’” 5 of them located in Athens and in Attica region, 1 of them in Brussels and 1 in Cyprus
• FABRIC REPUBLIC – an innovative and comprehensive clothing management system that focuses on today’s social needs, sustainability and sustainable development.
• AND MUCH MORE – Several other projects for the environment, refugees’ crisis response, women empowerment, homeless people and others.
• CONNECTED WE STAND – annual festival on solidarity, equity, art and culture
• EDIFY – certified training center for adult education

About the journey

This is an opportunity for you to be part of a volunteers team who will get together in the sub-urban environment of Porto Rafti in order to organise a series of recreational and non-formal learning activities for the young people of the local community and the people with mental health issues residing in boarding houses. You will share a human experience of living together in a dreamy training center and use it as a dock to build up an atmosphere of creativity, social inclusion, self- learning and fresh ideas.

During your stay you will

• create, facilitate and organise non-formal learning activities for children, youth of the local community and people with mental health issues
• be trained in aspects of non-formal education and familiarise with using them in the field
• implement activities related to permaculture
• create host and facilitate non-formal and sport activities for youth visiting the centre every weekend
• organise a large scale event for the broader public and be part of the Connected We Stand festival
• share rooms, cook, clean, do gardening, maintain your living space
• promote the actions and activities through several channels (social media, blogging, video making, photography, pop-up events etc)
• live in an intercultural environment for 2 months

The itinerary

Arrival: 15 October (αll day)

16 October: Start of the programme

14 December: End of the Programme

Departures 15 December (all day)

Late arrivals and early departures are not financed. If you want to explore Athens for couple more days you can extend your trip on your own costs.

Checkpoints

In order to achieve the above mentioned elements we will use the following steps in our journey.

STEP 1

Well, hello

STEP 3

Get on board

STEP 5

Think big

STEP 7

Maintain a sustainable port

STEP 2

Let's connect

STEP 4

Connected we stand

STEP 6

Spread it

Step 1: well, hello

In order to equip you with the necessary skills and ability, we are planning a 5-day intensive training within your stay and at the beginning of the activity.

In this training you will learn how to:

• Develop, facilitate and coordinate learning activities for groups,
• Develop skills in management, tasking and prioritising,
• Understand the principles of sharing with the world and through social media the work you do,
• Get trained to get familiar and be able to manage people with mental disabilities.

Step 2: let’s connect

On a weekly basis, the training center will host volunteers and local youth that in cooperation with your team will organise and implement local educational and sport activities in the area of Porto Rafti and not only.

The community includes schools, youth clubs and mental health residential facilities. This will be the point where you will be asked to implement your prior experience and the training you will get in order to:

Develop and coordinate activities based on the group needs (learning goals, budgeting, role distribution, task delegation)

Facilitating learning activities (working in teams, supporting group dynamics, evaluation etc)

Promote the activity (on social media, creating vlogs, writing blogs, making promotional videos)

Step 3: get on board

Twice a week, the training center is visited or you will visit the beneficiaries of the two boarding houses of IASIS.

Your team will have the opportunity to connect with them as well as create and facilitate recreational and experiential learning activities for them. Again we will go on the same direction:

Develop and coordinate activities based on the group needs (learning goals, budgeting, role distribution, task delegation)

Facilitating learning activities (working in teams, supporting group dynamics, evaluation etc)

Promote the activity (on social media, creating vlogs, writing blogs, making promotional videos)

CONNECTED WE STAND

During your journey your team will also have the opportunity to create various learning and solidarity activities, events, workshops and campaigns for young people on a local, regional level and national level in various areas, inside the training center of IASIS in Porto Rafti, outside of it, in the whole community and online.

Here you will get more space and the opportunity to create something of your own that you will present in the Nation Wide solidarity and awareness project of Iasis named Connected We Stand.

Step 4:

STEP 5: THING BIG

Towards the end of your journey, you and your team will organise one big-scale event (e.g. festival, sports event, concert etc) for the youth local community in order to cultivate solidarity and community involvement and to share all we have learnt.

There you will have the chance to develop a large scale event and invite all the people you met on your journey and share moments and elements of your experience.

STEP 6: SPREAD IT

During the whole journey, your team will carry out activities of raising awareness of active participation, democracy, sustainable development and environment protection, deepening the belonging to the European Community and connecting with youth from around the continent οnline (social media, blogs, video making, newspapers) and in high schools and public spaces (parks, town squares).

MAINTAIN A SUSTAINABLE PORT

One of the hidden duties that might be the most important and meaningful enough is that during these 2 months you will have the challenge to live and work together with other Europeans and maintain a home, a kitchen, a garden, a training center and a life together. For this reason you will need, with the support of the professionals in the beginning and as a team later, to make a budget plan for your food money, organize a menu, cook, keep the house clean and tidy and make your house a home.

STEP 7:

HOW WE WORK: attitude

Active participation of yours means that we consider you as part of the family of IASIS. As a result, we expect from you a professional attitude, we seek for your creativity and development, we welcome mistakes as learning gifts, we encourage initiatives and accountability.

Our team consists of a dynamic cluster of employees, associates, and volunteers engaged in non-formal learning. The working style you should adopt by joining the team is the working style of the non-formal activities facilitator. This practically means that you have to act like a professional performer, arranging rehearsals, meetings, flexible in workplaces, timetables, roles, priorities around the teams of your interest.

HOW WE WORK: practicals

During the project there are working hours, training hours, free time and informal time.

The working language is English, however staff members speak French and some super basic Greek would be important for social interactions. Additionally, Greek participants will support you with Greek 101.

The working hours are 36h a week and they usually are Wednesday to Sunday 10am to 7pm (with an hour lunch break). Mondays & Tuesdays are free days and you can spend them the way you want. In total you have 4 extra days for vacations. Training hours cannot be skipped and are included in the working hours.

Free time and informal time it is up to you how you are going to divide it. However, it has to be in a coordinated way since, besides work, you have a house to maintain, a menu to execute and housemates to live harmoniously with.

HOW WE WORK: values

While developing this project we used a set of values and we expect everyone involved to understand and use these values as a compass for their participation.

Meraki

in a way of auto-boost yourself to make it amusing for you

Sustainability

make it happen with whatever resources you have

Cooperation

Working in different groups of people in a smooth and challenging way

Hands-on learning process

you are responsible for your learning

YOUR PORT OF CALL

Υou will be hosted in Connect Your City’s training facilities in Porto Rafti. The accommodation is a 450 sq.m. cottage, in a 50-acre land, and has a capacity for 30 people.

Take a glimpse here to see how it looks like!

Amenities

30 beds and 3 bathrooms, where you will stay in shared rooms. We will provide bed linen, blankets and towels, as well as washing powder for your laundry. The accommodation has a washing machine and a fully equipped kitchen with all the necessary items for 30 people. There is WiFi access, a video projector and a sound system. There is also a swimming pool, basketball, tennis, volleyball and football court, a billiard/ping-pong table, an outdoor barbecue stove, an outdoor relaxing kiosk, a bicycle station, a permaculture garden and other amenities.

The activities

The activities – depending on the group and the context – take place in the training center, the surrounding areas of Porto Rafti (such as schools, municipal buildings etc), places in which action can be taken (eg. squares, beach actions, mountain hikes, sport fields etc), and in Athens (Iasis facilities, boarding houses, public places, squares etc).

Finances

Food Money

You are going to receive 5€/day in vouchers together with the rest of the volunteers and you will have to arrange the shopping list together.

Pocket Money

You are entitled to 5€/day for all 59 days of your stay in the project.

In total you are going to receive 600€ for the project

Travel reimbursement

Travel costs from and to Athens will be reimbursed up to the maximum amount of budget according to the distance from your supporting organization to Athens.

Participants from Greece are not eligible for reimbursement.

Extra goodies

Insurance

CIGNA Health insurance is provided to you for the whole duration of the project. This insurance covers all the medical costs planned or occurred during the service. We ask the participants to arrange the European health card prior to their arrival in Athens.

Transportation

You are going to receive a bicycle to use around Porto Rafti. In case of a planned trip for the purposes of the project, you will be transferred by the organization’s mini-vans or all your costs will be covered by the organization.

Certificates

After successfully fulfilling the project you are going to receive the Youthpass certificate, the official recognition tool for non-formal & informal learning in youth projects. It is a self-assessment certificate that is well recognised Europe-wide.
Internal certificate of IASIS indicating: hours of service, type of support that the volunteer offered to the organization and to local institutions, set of skills they acquired, with a personal recommendation. This certificate can also be used as a letter of recommendation for future employment reasons.

Language Course

You have the choice to study Greek language using the Online Linguistic Support. You will be enrolled in the system by your mentor. Additionally, you are going to receive some offline Greek language courses.

Covid19 Regulations

We are going to follow all the current legislation for the measures required in order to prevent the spread of the virus. Upon arrival you and your teammates will be tested for Covid19 in order to ensure your safety.

PORTO RAFTI

The project is taking place mostly in Porto Rafti near Athens, Greece, in the Attica region. It is a seaside resort town, 30 minutes from the center of Athens, which is the capital of Greece and holds almost half the population of the country (4 million people).

Porto Rafti is connected with the center of Athens by public buses. Porto Rafti has 10.000 residents during winter and 100.000 during summer and it has a peaceful suburban environment. The area is full of wineries that are famous for the traditional Attica region wine varieties.

The Attica region has hot summers (28 – 38oC) and reasonably not so cold winters. It might snow 1-2 days per year during winter and the temperature very rarely approaches 0oC. Springs and Autumns are just great to go out with a hoodie or a light jacket. Sunglasses are a must if you want to Greekify. Raincoats or umbrellas are mostly forgotten in a closet for a rainy day or for some consequent days that the weather wants to prove that it can also rain in Attica.

Attica has one international airport (Eleftherios Venizelos Athens International Airport) that is 10’ away from Porto Rafti, 3 metro lines connecting all the major places around, 3 tram lines mostly heading to the coastal part of the city, and a big port which connects the mainland with almost all the islands daily with ferries. There is also a suburban railway connection in and around Athens and a major train station for the national railway services. For the places that are not connected by train, there are 2 main bus stations that connect you with any place you want to go around Greece.

Participants

We are offering this opportunity to 15 international participants and 3 Greek residents in order to ensure the intercultural dimension of the project.

There are several requirements from the programme itself and a profile that we would like to focus on.

• 18-30 years old
• Legal residents of one of the Erasmus+ programme countries and they do not require visa to enter Greece
• Eager to learn or already having the knowledge on how to give non-formal learning activities (junior trainers – facilitators – wannabe facilitators)
• Enthusiastic on creating learning activities and social intervention activities.
• Eager to take initiative and create opportunities for themselves and the society Willing to share their message to the world through social and visual media channels Extreme priority will be given to those that are facing or faced any kind of troubles in life.