Martix and Pavlos Samios kindly donated a painting for the silent auction during Love Rocks; a charity dinner organised by the charitable foundation of Princess Catherine of Serbia. Love Rocks is a charity ball that has been taking place in London annually for the past few years. This year’s money is raised for three incredibly worthwhile projects (for further information, see below).
Project 1: Family Home Support Programme (FHSP) from Friends of the Child
Friends of the Child was founded in 1987 and its main objective is to support deprived children within their family environment in order to guarantee their normal development in society. The first association was established in Attica, with the objective of offering protection and care not only for sick or abused children, but also for children living below the poverty line. At the moment it supports 500 children from 300 families.
Friends of the Child provides aid to families:
• with a very low income (€8,000 per year/ below)
• or single parents with under-aged children
• with indigent children with health problems
Their service lines include 8 programmes, two of which (in bold) we are supporting this year;
1Medical treatment and preventive care programme for disadvantaged children
2 Family Home Support Programme (FHSP)
3 Food Distribution Programme for children and families in need
4A programme of social and psychological support for parents & children
5A special school support and cultural education programme
6A programme of talks and seminars for children, parents & teachers
7 Summer holiday programme
8 Nursery School
The Family Home Support Programme has been operative for two years, and aims at preventing the homeless phenomenon in Greece, which reached seriously alarming levels in the last few years. With an emphasis on supporting children and their families in their own environments, it was developed in order to focus on preventing “high-risk” families with underaged children from becoming homeless, by supporting these families with rent payments, fluctuating between €120 – 300 per month.
During the past few years the FHSP has become particularly crucial as many parents have lost their jobs and are unable to provide even the basic materials such as food and housing for their families.
Priority for FHSP is given to:
· Families with both parents unemployed
· Families with a member facing a serious health issue
· Single parent families
· Families with parents suffering from severe psychological conditions
Implementation:
Public Service notifies HFSP about a child or family in need. A social worker visits the family home, whereupon the family provides them with all the necessary documentation to prove their need of support (necessary IDs, Income Tax Return Form, Certificate of the family’s situation, Medical Examinations). Once this information passes the ‘Friends of the Child’ board, HFSP can start working with the family.
Further details:
· Work is done with families on a weekly basis.
· Funds are never given directly to the parents, instead HFSP take care of all their payments directly (rent/electricity/etc)
· Individual and group counseling is offered to the families in order to be able to re-enter the job market
· Families may benefit from the programme for six months or one year depending on the needs and the problems
specific to that family
specific to that family
Cost of this Programme:
With €90,000 HFSP we will be able to fund HFSP to provide support to 35 families in need, which means approximately 60 children for a whole year.
Project 2: Food Distribution Program (also from Friends of the Child)
The demand for Friends of the Child’s Food Distribution Programme is ever-increasing. In 2014, 120 children of 80 families were fed through this programme, with a diet consisting of almost exclusively pasta, bread, rice, and packaged products, which are obviously not optimal for nutrition. Their diet rarely includes dairy products, meat, fish, fresh fruits and vegetables. For this reason they are more vulnerable to diseases and obesity problems.
We wish to fund the following additions to the Programme: fresh milk, fresh fruits/vegetables, and fresh meat.
Distribution/Implementation:
Once a moth a grocery order will be made for each child worth €25 which will include:
· Long lasting milk products
· 1 kilo of fresh Greek Yoghurt
· 8-10 kilos of fresh vegetables and fruits.
Families will receive a ready-made package on specifically set days from the supermarket after showing proof of their identification (picture-ID) (so they cannot exchange this for money).
In addition, once a month an order will be placed with a butcher shop worth €25 which will include:
· Minced meat
· Chicken
· Red Meat
Cost of this Programme:
With €60,000 we will be able to fund Friends of the Child to accommodate 120 children of 60 families on a monthly basis for one year.
Further information is available at www.filoitoupediou.gr
Project 3: Mission ANTHROPOS from Desmos
Desmos is a non-profit Foundation, which was founded in 2012 (with offices in Athens and Thessaloniki), with the mission to best manage and utilize surplus products and services from companies and individuals in order to help in covering documented needs of social welfare providers and non-profit organisations. Since its establishment it has been able to provide for more than 300,000 short and long-term beneficiaries, by distributing goods and services exceeding €1,875,000 in (conservatively estimated) total value to over 455 social welfare organizations in Greece, through the donations of 207 companies and hundreds of individuals.
Desmos is a non-profit Foundation, which was founded in 2012 (with offices in Athens and Thessaloniki), with the mission to best manage and utilize surplus products and services from companies and individuals in order to help in covering documented needs of social welfare providers and non-profit organisations. Since its establishment it has been able to provide for more than 300,000 short and long-term beneficiaries, by distributing goods and services exceeding €1,875,000 in (conservatively estimated) total value to over 455 social welfare organizations in Greece, through the donations of 207 companies and hundreds of individuals.
Mission ANTHROPOS is a Greek non-profit NGO which aims to offer free humanitarian medical aid to people in need anywhere in the world, regardless of race, religion, nationality, ideology or political beliefs. Within Greece, they have been particularly active with 2 programmes, a vaccination programme, currently being funded by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation, and the following Programme, which we would like to support if we raise enough funds:
Medical services Programmes “Stiri-zoume”:
This programme provides medical services such as surgeries, orthopedic equipment, medication, etc. Set up in collaboration with the social services of 10 municipalities, 11 NGOs and a nation-wide network of hospitals, the programme provides medical and pharmaceutical care for uninsured and financially weak citizens, who are already under the care of other humanitarian organisations or social services. This initiative was developed by Mission ANTHROPOS, having acknowledged that the social and economic crisis has forced a number of citizens “out of the system”. Since February 2013, Stiri-zoume has managed to meet the needs of an extraordinary 248 out of 373 total requests. From those requests, 53% are infants and children and 47% are adults who have no access to medical care.
Implementation:
Citizens submit their request to Mission ANTHROPOS and after a case examination by an administrative official, and if the necessary prerequisites are met, the Mission ANTHROPOS will then cover the claim. What is particularly impressive, is that both these programmes are run mostly by volunteers. Within Mission ANTHROPOS only two people have salaried positions – the Administrative and Financial Management Assistants, who are responsible for the day to day administration.
Currently the programme only has enough funds to continue its operations until December 2015. This is heartbreaking as Stiri-zoume provides the last hope of medical care for a growing portion of the population.
Further information is available at:
www.desmos.org and on the Facebook page www.facebook.com/desmos.org
Martix and Pavlos Samios kindly donated a painting for the silent auction during Love Rocks; a charity dinner organised by the charitable foundation of Princess Catherine of Serbia. Love Rocks is a charity ball that has been taking place in London annually for the past few years. This year's money is raised for three incredibly worthwhile projects (for further information, see below).
