Description
The project aims to prevent social exclusion and promote the empowerment and integration of refugees through the provision of a set of complementary welfare services. These services will support refugees, placing an emphasis on the most vulnerable amongst them, in order to advocate and support their legal rights and enhance their social integration. In the absence of comprehensive state services for this group GCR will use its long-term experience in assisting refugees and provide a multifaceted and holistic mechanism of social welfare provision in the form of a one-stop-shop, i.e. individualized plans of social welfare provision functioning based on the most urgent need of each beneficiary.
Summary of project results
In 2015, the asylum service recorded 13.197 applications for international protection, a number that is 40% higher compared to those recorded in 2014. Also, it examined 8.437 asylum applications at a 1stdegree and issued 3.997 positive decisions, of which only 3.649 concerned the attribution of refugee status and 348 the subsidiary protection. The positive development of asylum applications’ examination in a much faster pace and the increase of the number of international protection statuses granted by the new asylum service, is contradicted by the lack of social support for the refugees, which is accentuated by the economic crisis and the perpetually increasing concentration of refugees in our country. Inevitably, hundreds of people will be faced with social exclusion and poverty. The project in question has contributed tremendously in the gradual resolution of the aforementioned problem, offering a thorough system of intervention, reinforcement and management of the refugees who live in our country.Through this project, direct and indirect services were delivered to refugees,strengthening their self-reliance, which in turn discourages their illegal stay in the country which translates to the complete deprivation of their rights and leads to their social exclusion, and in this way, their access to important services - which every other citizen in Greece is entitled to, since they concern legal enforceable rights, was granted. During the course of this project, social and professional advisory services as well as legal assistance for integration issues, performance and system renewal were offered in about 2.580 people. These services assisted directly in the qualitative and the quantitative reform of the social welfare service system and personalized legal assistance to vulnerable groups of refugees. Particularly, the provision of social and professional advisory services have contributed to the reduction of the phenomenon of poverty and marginalization. Moreover, through the use of the GCR’s supporting network, medical, psychological, housing and catering issues that arose during this project have been met. Finally, addressing refugees’ integration difficulties has contributed to an integrated and non-fragmented approach to their problems, while at the same time, taking a direct approach in strengthening them and through cooperating with refugee communities, has ensured the project’s maximum effectiveness.
Summary of bilateral results