Living charity: Why Verena from Munich helps refugees in Greece | Sunday paper
“I’m a category for myself,” says Verena Fink while running her hand through a basil bush. Here, in the middle of Thessaloniki, the Munich native has found her purpose. She has been a volunteer for the association since 2017 Oicopolisthe one in Greece’s second largest city emergency aid fur needy and refugees With environmental education combined.
The Oikopolis association is a contact point for Greeks and people fleeing
Founded in the wake of national solidarity movements and the hardships of the Greek economic crisis after 2010, Oikopolis has since become a focal point for Greeks and people fleeing the same way. “We support people clothing donations or through foodthat we spend. Sometimes we cook or host sustainability basiswhere we sell second-hand items,” explains Fink, who contributes to her livelihood seminars and Continuing Education Offers earned in the social sector. The work of Oikopolis is linked to environmental education and the claim of sustainability.
With her work for Oikopolis, Verena Fink combines solidarity and ecology
“Solidarity and ecology are the ideals that make up life for me. We as human beings only have a future if we connect them”,
says the 49-year-old, who has lived in Thessaloniki since 2017. The possibly theater teacher had supported the arriving refugees at Munich Central Station in 2015. When pictures of the refugee camp in Idomeni, northern Greece, went around the world in 2016, she decided to go to Greece for two weeks. This is how she came into contact with Oikopolis and found her calling. A year later, Verena Fink moved to Greece. “I only had bags and a backpack with me back then,” she recalls, laughing.
die German Evangelical Church Thessaloniki was her first port of call. She lived in the community center for a while and from there made contact with associations and initiatives that support people fleeing. “My faith has long been an important anchor point in life,” says Verena Fink and reports that she converted from the Catholic Church to Lutheran Protestantism at the age of 30 and that she was interested in the subject charity for them inseparable solidarity link:
“Nevertheless, charity is only a basis, for me solidarity means living this basis.”
Communication and language are essential when working with Oikopolis
Oikopolis sees itself as one religious and politically neutral organization, in which people of different backgrounds and world views work together. “This independence is very important to us. She makes sure that nobody can interfere with us, even though it’s sometimes a real financial burden,” says Verena Fink, the only German in the organization.
“We work a lot with language here. People who need help should be able to communicate,”
says Fink, whose Greek is now just as fluent as her French and English. “But I don’t get rid of my German accent that easily,” she says, emphasizing that from the very beginning it was important to her not just to live in Greece , but also to be able to communicate with the Greeks.
A need for communication not only do they have it, says Fink, but it is also inherent in Greek nature. “This need suffered greatly during the months of lockdown and the pandemic,” reports Fink, who also associates it with a kind of solidarity crisis.
“We are finding that support for fleeing people in the country seems to be declining. This is partly because the Greeks themselves are having more and more problems, but also because of European and national politics.”
Support for people fleeing appears to be declining across Europe
Many Greeks feel left hanging by Europe and their own government. “A lot of support money from Brussels never got where it was needed, and apart from supposed border security, we don’t notice much from the EU,” says Fink, describing her point of view.
But even if the problems for the Germans in Greece are increasing – the worldwide ones Business– and energy crisis has long since reached the country – returning to Germany is not an option for them. Her voluntary work is needed too urgently, she has discovered her love for the Greek way of life too much:
“I fit in here. I can be who I want to be here.”