Self-Advocacy Greece is a volunteer initiative, run by individuals and professionals on advocacy, community empowerment, and refugee/migrant issues. We specialize in the creation of Self-Advocacy Teams (SAT) made of refugees, asylum seekers, migrants, and second-generation Greeks who are active members of their communities and strive for inclusion into Greek society.
Based on the experience of our members on mobilizing and empowering the refugee communities in Athens, we are determined to continue the endeavor for the civic engagement and effective inclusion of refugees and migrants. As the individuals with a long experience in refugee/migrant issues embody self-advocacy and the self-organization of the communities, the creation of Self-Advocacy Teams (SAT) serves this purpose in an extraordinary manner; composed of members of several different nationalities that will enhance their skills through workshops, interactions with the communities, and other similar activities, the SAT will continue to advocate for a holistic social inclusion by empowering their voice and visibility with the aim of influencing policymakers and, at the same time, providing essential feedback from the field at a national level on a constant basis.
Our first Self-Advocacy Team was created back in March 2019 in advance of the local-national-EU election period (May-July 2019), as an outcome of the need expressed by several communities to be included in all matters related to society, under the main argument that political inclusion was a key element of social inclusion. Inspired by the pre-election period, it was a strategic move aiming to create awareness of us being here and caring about the political future of the country.
The priorities of the Self-Advocacy Greece adjusted, however, to the rapid turn of the State’s approach on migration following the elections and focused on raising awareness of changes in policies, advocating for inclusion, rights, and obligations, and promoting the good practice of cooperation between all relevant actors: communities, State authorities, and NGOs.
The members of the various SATs of Self-Advocacy Greece went through capacity-building workshops related to advocacy and communication topics, represented the volunteer initiative in several events, and participated in campaigns, conferences, and roundtables. Self-Advocacy Greece is always open to new members to whom they can provide their expertise by facilitating workshops and meetings. Through this interaction, the Self-Advocacy Teams emerge; people who obtained the necessary tools and info, share their own points of view on specific topics, come together and disseminate the work being done to their equivalent communities, Municipalities, NGOs.
The teams impersonate the advocacy strategy of Self-Advocacy Greece, since there are no better advocates for refugees and migrants than refugees and migrants themselves.