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Marina Nikolova

A representative of the NGO "Child and Family" proposed that the municipalities’ management needs to take on the responsibility of the overhead costs for electricity, municipal taxes and value added tax for organizations working with volunteers. It is also necessary for volunteers to have health insurance, so they can be insured in case something happens to them during their activities.

The NGO “Child and Family” works with children who come from poor families or have unemployed parents. They also conduct training courses for volunteers with people from seven European countries in order to teach them how to protect themselves while working on the street. 

The organization “Home and Family ", as its representative said, deals with all people who need help. They have created a kindergarten “Children's Nest", where they take care of the children of the unemployed. Moreover, they have opened something like a store, which offers essential products at very low prices, and their products are given away for free to unemployed parents. The organization also distributes products in various districts of the capital. "We became volunteers because we know that the statesmen in Greece are not aware of what constitutes public interest," noted a volunteer from “Home and Family”.  "The most important thing is to understand that we should help people who are next to us, without caring if we know them or not," says Julie, who has been a volunteer for several years, but otherwise works in the advertising sector. 

Since last year, "Home and Family” has started organizing hiking in nature, where participants are taught how to communicate and are encouraged to share their ideas on how life in the city can be improved. Since December 2010 the organization has created its own help line, which is available to people of all ages and operates 24 hours a day. 

Former military aviation employee Maria Alexandri works on a voluntary basis in the NGO “The Smile of the Child”. 49-year-old Alexandri says that her job is to keep company and play with children who were abused by a family member and are on therapy at the Children's Hospital in Athens. By law, children who were mistreated or abused by their family members should be separated immediately from their family. For a period of three to six months, they remain in the hospital before they are sent to an orphanage. During this time of recovery, the organization "The Smile of the Child”, which cooperates with the hospital, sends volunteers to keep company to the children, to play with them, to bathe or feed them, if they are younger. 

Organizations that work for the good of children have different specialties. In Greece there are organizations in which members are children since their 5^th birthday. These are the famous scout movements and leader organizations. "We are trying to create happy, proactive and helpful people. Children should develop as independent, responsible individuals who dedicate themselves to others as well. The aim of the Scout Movement is to educate young people and establish a system of values ​​based on the principles of the promise and law. Every new member promises to be interested in people around him/her, to work on themselves, to improve and to be an active citizen. The aim of this process is for this person to be able to live with others, to strive to create a better world and to accept a constructive role in society," says the representative of the Scout Movement in Greece. Children learn from one another, the older ones teach the younger and all this takes place through different activities in nature in groups of 6 to 8 people. Right now there are 25 000 members in the Scout Movement in Greece and it is the largest and oldest organization for young people in the country. 

Similar is also the organization of the Leaders, which takes in members from the age of 5 to 17. The basic principles are three: to live in nature, to be useful and to develop physically, says Vanessa Melissi, who has spent two thirds of her life as a member of the organization. "Leaders" develop confidence and learn to justify their arguments with logical assessment. "Playing is an essential tool for us for teaching children. We set a few simple rules: to be fair, to respect the rules and to respect the people involved. It is not required to be fast, tall, handsome, slender, but only to give the best of yourself, because the game allows everyone to express themselves," summarized Vanessa Melissi.