First impressions
This is the first time that I share my thoughts in a blog and I want to thank you for taking the time to read my experience during the SAP Social Sabbatical 2016 in Athens, Greece. At first I thought to give short updates of our days but it seems it will be more of a week summary and for sure it will be an outcome of our team.
As a participant of the SAP Social Sabbatical (SoSa) we, 12 SAP colleagues from around the world, will have the opportunity to work for 4 weeks intensively in Athens, split in 4 groups of 3 and working for different projects/NGOs (Non-Governmental Organization).
Together with my colleagues Marco Antonio Saavedra from Caracas, Venezuela, and Anthony Jakubiak from San Francisco, USA, we will work for the NGO Organization Earth which provides services around the UN’s Sustainability Goals — from environmental education and urban farming initiatives to running accelerators for green startups to providing humanitarian relief to the refugee crises that has recently engulfed Greece.
Where to start as the first week is almost gone?
Maybe the best is to give a short overview about Organization Earth (OE), which was founded in 2010. Organization Earth pursues their mission of development of “Environmental & Social Intelligence” primarily through experiential, non-formal educational activities that empower and motivate learners to change their behavior. The organization is divided into three primary initiatives: Center of the Earth, Earth Refugees and Aephoria that cover their goals for Planet, People, Prosperity and each of them includes its own projects and dedicated staff.
Our job will be to develop & design services and strategies that will better align their portfolio of offerings and can transform their organization from one currently operating at the local level to one of an international NGO standard.
We visited the Center of the Earth which is just a 25 minute bus ride (8 km) from the center of Athens. At the moment you pass through its gates, you enter a complete different era — a peaceful and balancing place. Organization Earth’s goal is to educate people on their view on the environment and nature, forming personal relationships with nature and better relationships with each other! Already approximately 30,000 school kids made the “Journey to the Center of the Earth” and about 500 unemployed attended their “Organic Agriculture” training programs for free.
We really enjoyed our visit which ended with a communal lunch — which included going to the fields and grabbing vegetables and fresh herbs for us to cook. This was really an inspiring day.
When the refugee crisis arrived to the port of Piraeus in Athens, Organization Earth started it’s initiative Earth Refugee to transition refugees in Greece from passive recipients of humanitarian aid to productive members of a sustainable society.
Over a 120-day period, staff and volunteers of Organization Earth supported the refugees with preparing more than 110,000 meals. With the port’s closing in July 2016 they deployed their personnel and volunteers to three refugee sites in Greece’s Attica region.
To better understand the work of Earth Refugees we had the chance to visit two of these refugee sites, both of which are completely different.
First we visited the refugee site ‘Sounio’ which is situated at Cape Sounio in the southern part of the Attic Peninsula at the southern tip of Greece mainland. Sounio Refugee Camp is based in a former summer camp for children with about 70 individual wooden cabins with basic dorm-style rooms. This was adapted for the refugees and there are about 400 inhabitants accommodated with most of the population being Syrian families. Compared to other camps, the accommodation is certainly better but for example there is no hot water in the houses and no heating just to name a few of the limited resources available to these camps.
The next day we visited ‘Skaramangas’. This refugee site is located in Athens old port and is completely different, as more than 3,500 migrants live in Skaramangas and the site is supported by several international organizations such as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the Children’s Fund of the United Nations (UNICEF), the Red Cross and many others. The migrants live in reconditioned containers with bunk beds, hot running water and electricity. Most of the units have air conditioning, as well. The children in this site have no possibility to visit Greek schools yet, which is really sad as most of them want to learn!
I will not go more into detail but you can imagine that it is not easy to visit such camps, especially if you do it for the first time. Many emotions, a lot of embarrassment and, most of all, a feeling of helplessness.
Thus far the days have been long but working with such incredibly passionate and talented people across Greece and SAP has been so inspiring.
More to share next week.
