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Workshops for social justice and inclusion

Workshops for social justice and inclusion

Pervolarides of Thessaloniki

Proposal abstract

We wish to financially support volunteers who are unemployed or work under precarious conditions to provide workshops on the subjects described above. Many people who are part of our group or our network have the knowledge and capacity to facilitate various workshops. Through a horizontal, bi-directional education activity we aim to empower both the educators/facilitators and the workshops participants.
A small financial support should be provided to the educators/facilitators, allowing them to cover basic costs (stipend for transportation, facilitation, preparation time). Also, we need to cover costs for basic materials, like gardening and cooking items.

Who we are

Pervolarides is a community of diverse volunteers that has been growing since 2013 in Thessaloniki, Greece. We welcome all people who wish to support those who are struggling in life, who experience socio-economic exclusion, loss of income, homelessness or are classified as refugees and migrants. We operate in two pillars: First pillar is the provision of hot meals, fruits, vegetables, and personal hygiene items to people in precarious accommodation conditions and to homeless. Food reclaimed from various sources is good quality that otherwise would be dumped to landfill. Second pillar is the provision of workshops for community awareness & engagement, social inclusion, self-sufficiency, capacity building and political education. More specifically: Workshops on food sovereignty, food process, permaculture, beekeeping. We also provide workshops on cooperative housing, urban justice & sustainability, commons-enclosures-peer production, introduction to social & solidarity economy. We cooperate with public schools, local civil society organizations, people with special needs.

What we want to do and how we will do it

We intend to offer workshops on different topics so that a diverse amount of people will get involved and benefit. More specifically, we will offer three main categories of workshops: 1a. Workshops on urban/suburban (also indoors and balcony) gardening for growing our own food, based on permaculture technique (for example, rainwater collection, making of composting from household waste, use of local seeds/plants). 1b. Workshops on beekeeping. 2. Workshops on household food self-sufficiency (tomato sauce making, marmalade & pickles preparation, pies preparation). 3. Workshops on cooperative housing, urban justice & sustainability, commons-enclosures-peer production, keys for sustainable cities, introduction to social & solidarity economy, seed bombing. We are in collaboration with public schools, groups of children in the autism spectrum, children with special needs. We also participate in local and international networking with like-minded groups. We intend to organize two workshops per week from the above-mentioned categories. We will invite people through our media pages (Facebook, Instagram, twitter) and through our followers database. Depending on the subject and the capacity of both our organization and the other communities that we cooperate with, we will schedule and organize a variety of workshops and activities. Every week at least 10 people are expected to participate in at least one of our workshops. In a timeframe of 6 months, we expect that more than 240 people will have participated in our activities. Activities can be organized in cooperation with other civil society organizations to enhance networking and community engagement. We can also provide consultancy and facilitation to other groups for the above-mentioned subjects.

How much money do we need and what for?

We apply for 2.500 €. More specifically: Transportation costs for transfer of volunteers/materials to/from workshop sites: 500 €. Gardening/cooking tools items: 500 €. Volunteers’ stipend (for covering transportation, facilitation, preparation time costs): 1500 €

Why / How does it contribute to /reflects the municipalism principles

Our intention is not only to support the most vulnerable, but also through communal activities to create a sense of community to people who are marginalized. Most importantly, we aim to create a safe environment in which people can participate in educational activities and political education, thus raising their awareness on social and political matters. We wish to initiate or participate in awareness campaigns on feminist, LGBT+, migrant/refugee, homeless, food sovereignty etc. matters. The more social/political aware our community is, the more can act as a pressure point and mobilize other people and groups for the benefit of the many, in municipal/regional or national level. Finally, our intention is that our group contributes to systemic change in a local level. We would like to contribute to the ongoing process of the social and political transformation that occurs both inside and outside of our organization’s ecosystem.

Materials

· Pervolarides presentation for EMN 2022
· https://www.facebook.com/PervolaridesThessalonikis
· https://www.instagram.com/pervolarides_thessalonikis/

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