"When I arrived in Greece I had no one to help me. I arrived in Athens and I did not know what to do. I met some people they told me will help me go to my brother in Sweden but they just took my money and stabbed me. I thought I will die alone."
Ahmed, Unaccompanied minor 16 years old
The context
Right now, just like Ahmed, there are thousands of alone children in Greece, hundreds of them in Athens. The majority of them are homeless, sleeping on the streets and in parks, exposed to serious risks. Due to COVID-19, more and more of these children are forced to stay in shared apartments with adults, strange. In exchange, they are asked to offer their ‘services’.
These children remain out of the radar of the official protection services. They are invisible.
Our work
DCI Greece offers free legal aid and child protection services to the most vulnerable children on the move. These homeless and alone children, when receiving proper individual support, become visible again. What’s different about us, is the holistic and caring approach of every single case. For us, children are not just numbers. Each and every one of them is a survivor, that needs help to reach their full potential.
Our Impact
Since May 2018, our Helpdesk reached out and supported more than 1500 children in cases
of: Asylum Process, Shelter, Detention, Family Reunification, Age Assessment, Exploitation
and Sexual Abuse, Access to help and Education, while more than 1000 have been participating in our information and empowerment sessions.
More particularly:
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more than 81% of our homeless, exploited children and children in danger were transferred to safe shelters.
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100% of our illegally detained children were released within one month
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68% of family reunification cases were successful with the vast majority of the children are already safe in another country
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93% of our cases managed to grant immediate access to the asylum system
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85% of our cases, granted the refugee status
These holidays, support DCI Greece, so we can stand by the side of more and more alone children.
Help us never to leave them alone.