📝 Detailed information
🏢 About the local organisation
Since 2013 ELIX implements -This Summer is Ours- in cooperation with the Municipality of Elefsina, which provides the spaces, and the company Hellenic Petroleum, which co-founds the project. Thanks to this yearly collaboration, so far ELIX has been successfully implementing this workcamp for 6 years. Children and kids with mental and physical disabilities, the target group of the project, look forward to meeting volunteers and to participate once again in the lovely activities that they will prepare for them.
Last year, 34 children and young people with mental and physical disabilities benefitted from the workcamp. Thanks to the annual implementation of the project and its beneficial effect on children, -This summer is ours- became something for which families wait, because they see their children happy, hence every summer parents ask to enroll them. By word of mouth, the project is being known by more and more local families, extending its positive impact.
SDGs in action: by volunteering in this project, you are actively working for equal access to quality learning for persons with disabilities (UN SDG4 Quality Education) and supporting reduced inequalities through the promotion of social inclusion of all regardless of age, sex, disability or other (UN SDG10 Reduced inequalities).
💼 What the programme involves
-This Summer is Ours- has been created to provide disabled children and young people with an inclusive and playful setting where they have the opportunity to interact and make friends with volunteers from all over the world, while dedicating themselves to creative tasks that are usually not available for disabled kids and young people in summertime.
Volunteers hold a fun and diverse daily schedule for children, teenagers and young people with mental and physical disabilities, aged 10-29 years old, from Monday to Friday, from 8:00am to 2:00pm. Volunteers support the educational activities for children by helping the pedagogue to implement athletic activities, workshops, artistic events, theatrical plays, cross-cultural education and much more, having the opportunity to design and implement their own ideas with the support of the pedagogue. In order to prepare volunteers for the following weeks, an initial training is put in place during the first weekend of the workcamp. Here, the daily program of activities, developed beforehand by a pedagogue, is introduced to the group of volunteers. Some afternoons are used to prepare activities for the following days. Volunteers are invited to bring games, songs, ideas, and musical instruments!
🏠 Accommodation on site
Volunteers are accommodated at the school where the daily activities take place, on the outskirts of Elefsina. Well-equipped for children and young people with disabilities, the school is a spacious building with a big yard and free spaces. The accommodation is basic but adequate; volunteers will sleep on the floor in the classrooms of the school. Sleeping bags and carry mats are necessary. There are toilets, showers and cooking facilities at the school s premises. There is no internet wi-fi. Air-condition is not available at the school, but there are fans. Everyday two different volunteers from the group, in shifts, are responsible for maintaining the group accommodation place clean, as well as for preparing all meals for the team of volunteers.
📍 About the location
Around 20 km away from Athens, the town of Elefsina is located in West Attica, Greece. With a population of 25.863 inhabitants, Elefsina is best known for having been the site of the Eleusinian Mysteries, one of the most famous religious events of the ancient Greek religion, as well as for being the birthplace of Aeschylus, one of the three great tragedians of antiquity. Today Elefsina is a major industrial center.
Elefsina, Athens and the port of Piraeus are connected by bus, hence volunteers have plenty of choices for their free time, such as a visit to the Archeological Museum and the site of Eleusis, to Athens, the port of Piraeus, or a daytrip to the island of Salamina. Volunteers may attend the events organized during the period of their stay, such as concerts, festivals, performances, etc. They will discuss their free time activities with their camp leaders; together they will organize excursions and visits.
The school is located on the outskirts of the city and is reachable by bus from the centre in approx. 10 minutes.
