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Victoria Mindova

"If you do not like something - change it!" On this basis, was founded the organization Atenistas, which works absolutely voluntary, it gathers people of all ages and professions with one common goal - to change and improve conditions in the city that they love. Their driving force is the goodwill and the desire for a positive change. They do not wait for the state or community hall to take care of things that they don’t like. They do their work alone and do not expect any praise. They are the kind of people who do things themselves rather than waiting for things to happen to them.

The organization is active since the autumn of 2010 and is engaged in community service of any type. Public spirited and eager to correct the wrongs that we all see but we easily overlook, the volunteers have behind them several very successful campaigns. One of them was cleaning the beach around the stadium, "Peace and Friendship" on the outskirts of Athens last year, as well as the collection of food products with long shelf life and milk for care facilities for disadvantaged children.

Currently the organization consists of 25 people who love Athens and want to see the city more beautiful, cleaner and better. Among the volunteers there are engineers, architects, mathematicians, lawyers. The example they set quickly infected people from other Greek cities who followed their example and organized their own volunteer groups in their local cities - Tesalonikistas in Thessaloniki, Patristas in Patras, Pirgistas in Pyrgos, etc. Another campaign of Atenistas was to collect items for the homeless and give them to the needy.

At twelve o'clock noon in the sunny Saturday afternoon on Kodziya Square in the heart of Athens representatives of Atenistas set up a point for collecting of old, but preserved jackets, shoes, even socks, quilts, hewn and other trivial things, which however have very high value if you are homeless. Atenistas were pitched two large tables in front of the fountain at the square that represented the receiving station. On one table were collected the blankets, sleeping bags and quilts that people were bringing and on the other were collected clothes. From there, volunteers were separating in different bags the clothes, into male and female, and into trousers and shirts and outerwear.

People from all parts of Athens came to contribute to the initiative. There were allso passers-by who noticed the bags of clothes, but did not know about the initiative. They were asking the most amusing questions like: "How much do you ask for these clothes?" Answer: "We are not selling them, we are collecting them for the homeless." "But they are worn," noted another woman passer-by. "Well, the homeless would still not give them up" - I intervene with a sweet tone and a smile.

Elena, 28 years old, is an employee in an NGO and founder of Atenistas. Her obvious desire to make the world around her a better place to live in is contagious and even admirable. I asked her in jest, if she ever gets tired of helping the others, given that her main job is related to charity and in the weekends she’s doing the same, but for no money. "Everyone in the group devotes few hours of our lives to make changes that may not be large in general, but are important to us," she said simply.

The quickly piling bags of clothes and blankets attracted the attention of various people who came to check what this is about. Almost 90% of the curious were emigrants from different parts of the world who wanted pants, shirts and everything that they came across. The program of the organizers included collection of desired objects from 12 noon to 14 pm and than from 2 o’clock to 4 o’clock in the afternoon distributing them to the homeless on the streets of Athens. It turned out, however, that the crowd can not wait and began to enter the territory of the stored and separated clothes. The organizers had to to make human chain to keep the crowd from taking clothes.

 "Today's campaign began with the idea not to collect clothing, but only sleeping bags, blankets, warm hats or shoes. We can not however turn down the people who have bothered to bring clothes", continued Elena. While we were talking, the situation with those who wanted to take some clothes started going out of control. We stopped our conversation to reassure them that all clothing will be distributed after two hours.

Among the "needy" there were people who turned out to be neither homeless nor unemployed. Among the publicly active Athenians I also took my place among the ranks of the volunteers, and we calmly and carefully explained to each person that he will be able to take two clothes after about an hour and a half as long as he really can not afford clothing or a roof over his head. Organizers feared that if the distributing started before they had collected and sorted all the clothes there will be nothing left for the homeless in neighboring areas. They wanted to be sure that the clothes will go to people in genuine need.

But people did not want to wait. "I'm from Persia and I want a pair of pants, I can not wait," said as an order in broken Greek a young man. He turned out to be an illegal immigrant who has had no job in the past year and a half. After telling us his story it became clear that he did not want to stay in Greece and wants to go to Germany, where to find work. His clothes were clean and tidy and fit him perfectly in size. He wore a plaid shirt, suede jacket with a slim lapel and clean jeans. "You don’t look neither unemployed nor homeless," I said and he smiled slightly and replied: "Yes, but I am! Now will you give me that jacket?"