GREECE
and promote cooperation. For example, all supplies for the facility
are purchased from local providers and neighbourhood shops.
Sustainability of services
Over the past two years, many European and international organ-
isations have scaled up their activities in Greece with the aim of
providing humanitarian assistance to overcome the challenges
in the national protection and asylum system. Nevertheless, such
interventions usually do not aim to provide long term and sustain-
able services. This initiative was developed within this context as
a way to accommodate children who could not be accommodated
by government authorities and public services. The lack of secure,
long-term funding makes the activities difficult to sustain, even
though the authorities are still struggling to take over responsibility
to provide adequate accommodation, and more than 1,000 children
are still awaiting placement in safe, child-appropriate shelters.
Lack of foster and other family-based care options for unac-
companied and separated children
Although the project provides quality services for unaccompanied
and separated children, it does not promote family-based care. Both
UNICEF and SOS Children’s Villages actively support the reform of
the child protection system in Greece and promote new legislation
on family and foster care which in the future would allow develop-
ing family- and community-based care programmes for all children
deprived of parental care in Greece, including unaccompanied and
separated children.
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