Food for All
The Greek Forum of Migrants, with the support of INTERSOS, began at the end of 2021 an emergency project initiative called Food for All.
Food for All
The Greek Forum of Migrants, with the support of INTERSOS, began at the end of 2021 an emergency project initiative called Food for All.
The project aims to facilitate the population that experiences challenges in terms of survival and marginalization. The objective of Food for All is to provide immediate relief to the vulnerable population residing in Athens and mitigate the vulnerability that they experience in terms of survival and nutrition.
Food for All project is addressed firstly to grassroot communities and specifically to the vulnerable ones. Many migrants and refugees face difficulties and challenges regarding daily food accessibility. Greek Forum of Migrants conducted mapping and needs assessment within the communities during the pandemic breakout. Regarding the Urban area of Athens, more than 1500 people had no stable access to food and were under an emergency on nutrition survival.
Due to the pandemic, many migrants and refugees were left suddenly unemployed as the restriction measures minimized their employment opportunities. Many families were left with no income and access to government subsidies as the means of employment were not necessarily legal. Already existing problems just worsened, due to the reduction of essential services such as the provision of accommodation and other vital benefits.
Grassroots migrant and refugee communities face challenges as their members are not in a position to support them through public events, and at the same time, the pandemic suspended all cultural events that could stimulate the communities.
The lack of integration policy raised significant factors such as the absence of housing, welfare, medical support, proper information policy, legal consultation, etc. and the affected population is in danger of marginalization and creates a dystopic framework for those in need. Since October 1st,2021 thousands of children, women and men dont have access to food. This is causing severe distress and is putting vulnerable people at risk. 25% of the refugee residents in facilities on the Greek mainland are women (including pregnant women and single-headed families) while 40% are children. The second instance of rejection decision cases is currently high, and there are nationals from Syria, Afghanistan, Somalia, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, to whom the concept of the safe-third country has been applied. The supported population is currently in legal limbo, without access to legal identity (status), rights, and primary services, including food provision.
The necessity in daily food access creates an emergency situation that needs to be addressed immediately to secure the survival of the vulnerable population.
The “Food for All” project supports the right of every human being to have access to food, regardless of their legal status. Food insecurity, let alone food deprivation, is a challenging survival condition that no individual should experience.
The Food for All initiative is part of the Migrants/Refugees Food project of the Greek Forum of Migrants - GFM, and INTERSOS in the context of a Community-based approach to emergency response in the mainland program, that is supported by Stichting Vluchteling - SV (Netherlands Refugee Foundation).
