The second instalment of Michal Pavlásek’s ‘Stories from the Babel Archipelago’, this time about the work of social and community centres in Greece.
*This article is part of a five-part series, available to read here.
Over the last decade many social and community centres have been created or expanded in response to Greece’s economic crisis. Today unemployment in the country remains at 25%, rising to over 50% among young people. Meanwhile as a result of austerity measures, pensions have been halved, and salaries in state jobs have been cut by 40%. Then on top of it all there is the infamous refugee crisis.
Alongside squats and various grassroots welfare clinics, community centres provide help for people in a variety of difficult situations, those who were suddenly unable to pay rent and support their children, or, in the case of many refugees, who lived in camps with unsatisfactory conditions. Many of the latter have now become ‘clients’ at solidarity reception centres.
Janis has been working as a psychotherapist in the Clinical Psychology Centre, Babel, which has been open for ten years. Originally the centre focused on asylum seekers but, gradually, they had to respond to new developments and the centre has also become a daycare centre for various kinds of migrants.
