Our challenge: Regeneration of Kypseli Market
During this semester at Panteion University within the course of Startup Lab, we had the chance to work on a project that had to do with the renovation of the Market of Kypseli. #Dimitris Kokkinakis, member of Impact Hab Athens, the organization that has undertaken to carry on the mission, asked us to find ways to give life to the city streets, bring people together and generally enliven the city. Our team Infinitum that is consisted by Maria Gougi Kleidi Lika Thomi Galani and myself, decided to settle a main issue that has occurred to the city which is the the assimilation of immigrants and the palliation of native‘s sentiments.
Many racist outbursts and xenophobia episodes have occurred to the city and they certainly need to be expunged. So, the solution that we decided to give, was to find a way for immigrants to participate actively in the Kipseli’s Market, by making traditional sweets and generally food derived from their origins in order to bring together the different cultures. The reason why we came to that conclusion is that we thought that making tha natives spend time and get to know the immigrants during the transactions will help them vanish the suspicion and the fear that they might have towards the second ones. On the ither hand immigrants will have the opportunity to offer to the community, mingle with the natives and cover job positions. They will have a direct contact with the natives, participate in the events that are going to be organized in the market of Kypseli and they will provide revenue through the sales.
Working on this project for three months we gain the opportunity to meet new people both Greeks and foreigners, hear their stories, understand their struggles, observe their behaviors and listen to their opinions about the challenge we undertook and specifically about the relationships among the natives and the immigrants. Through our research and the interviews we took we realized that not everything is as it is expected to be. We listened opinions that took us off guard and met fanatics and receptive people that surprised us. We also understood the difficulties and the obstacles that have to be passed in order to transform a theoretical idea into reality. You need to be focused, well organized, predictive, ready to plan ahead adn eager to move forward and complete the tasks you have step by step.
We have to thank Betty Tsakarestou , Spiros Kapetanakis and Katerina Vlassopoulou for guiding us through the semister and making us understand what it means to practically get involved to a startup.
