Elias is a 21-year-old boy from Afghanistan, who grabs any opportunity to educate, to improve and to discipline himself in his new country, Greece.

Along with the rest of his family, he left his country for Greece three years ago. Initially they were staying in the refugee camp of Lavrio, a sea-port town in southeastern part of Attica. Today they are staying in a flat in Exarchia, in the heart of Athens.

In our season finale, Elias tells us how he has changed in terms of religion, education and habits, and why he is standing against his parents’ call to leave Greece ASAP.

Greece has in the last decade received a large number of persons from the Middle East such as Iraqis, Kurdish, Turkish, Iranians, Afghans and Pakistanis, as well as some Africans (Nigerians, Somalis) and persons from the former Soviet republics (Georgians, Russians). A large number of them remain undocumented in Greece hoping to continue their journey to Western Europe at some point later. Others apply for asylum with the aim to stay here despite the country’s financial crisis.

To learn more about the documentation and asylum process, listen to our first episode.

Integration is extended to multiple sectors of social life, such as education, accommodation, work and interpersonal relations. The level of integration can differ from one process to another and can be influenced by factors such as the personal characteristics of the individual and their legal statuses as well as the characteristics of the society that receives them.

OECD and the European Commission define integration as “a multidimensional process”. Read more here --> https://read.oecd-ilibrary.org/social-issues-migration-health/indicators-of-immigrant-integration-2015-settling-in_9789264234024-en#page1

Mr. Kostas Kalemis is the Refugee Education Coordinator in the camp of Malakasa, a small town 30 kilometers north of Athens. He explains why education is the most powerful tool to realize sustainable development and how it can eliminate hate speech towards refugees.

Mr. Kalemis has been working in the camp as a representative of the Greek Ministry of Education for the last two years. He is responsible for the educational programs for all students from 4 to 14 years old. Sotiris met him in his office, which is actually a container inside the camp, and they discussed the role of education in establishing relationships supportive to integration, the lack of translators in Greek schools, and how education can help eliminate hate speech towards refugees.

Education itself is an empowering right and one of the most powerful tools by which economically and socially marginalized children and adults can lift themselves out of poverty and participate fully in society. The right to education is a fundamental human right which is respected, protected and promoted by the Greek state. According to European and national law, every child, has the right to education and, most importantly, any refugee child.

In March 2016, the Greek Ministry of Education Research & Religious Affairs took the initiative to prepare a plan for the integration of refugee children into education in order to contribute to their wider social integration. They established three committees for the support of refugee children:

- The Committee for the Support of Refugee Children headed by the Secretary General of the Ministry of Education Research & Religious Affairs and 14 staff members from the Ministry of Education Research & Religious Affairs.

- The Scientific Committee (SC) consisting of 26 professors and scientific associates from Greek Higher Education Institutions, working closely with the Secretary General of the Ministry of Education Research & Religious Affairs.

- The Art Committee (AC) consisting of 9 members who are artists and professors related to the art departments of HE Institutions.

Meet Morteza, an 18-year-old refugee from Afghanistan. From Izmir he travelled to Samos island, to finally reach the Greek mainland. On this episode he tells Sotiris about his life in Schisto refugee camp.

Morteza is in standby​ mode, as he is patiently waiting for his family reunification in Germany. Nevertheless, he has created a new norm for his life here. School, lessons, interpersonal relationships; situations and facts that connect him emotionally with Greece.

Today, Morteza provides an inside view of Schisto Refugee Camp, the living conditions there, and the facilities they have or not. He finally likens the camp to a nest.

Schisto Refugee Camp is one of the camps that were officially established by ministerial decree as 'Temporary Reception and Accommodation Settlements', under the Law 4375/2016.

In the beginning, and for quite a long time, the camp's residents had to live in tents, which were gradually replaced by containers, in line with the UNHCR 'winterization' scheme. It was only in January of 2017 that those containers were equipped with air-conditioning units for heating and that a sanitation system was established to allow the use of private indoor toilets.

According to the 2017 Network for Children's Rights report, titled 'Conditions in refugee camps: The case of Schisto', "substantial inadequacies, deficiencies and even large gaps in the protection, security, dignity and quality of living conditions of asylum-seekers in Greece, with children making up the largest vulnerable group affected."

Read the full report here --> http://www.ddp.gr/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/SchistoReport_en.pdf

Tassos Morfis is a talented Greek journalist and one of the founders of AthensLive, a non-profit newsroom based in Athens. He analyzes the media involvement in the latest refugee crisis in Greece and the public debate around it.

Tassos tells Aristea the way Greece was used as a 'scapegoat' during the refugee crisis and how national and European media outlets were broadcasting the news.

Among all those voices, someone could distinguish a far-right and terrorising rhetoric that reinforces or perpetuates ingrained biases and stereotypes. On the other hand, there were also sceptical and progressive narratives who gave another perspective on the 'established' dissemination plan of news full of racism and hate speech.

The European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI), has developed specific recommendations about situations where minority groups, such as refugees and migrants, may be hindered in their access to equal rights because of discriminatory attitudes against them.

As ECRI defines: "Hate speech […] entails the use of one or more particular forms of expression – namely, the advocacy, promotion or incitement of the denigration, hatred or vilification of a person or group of persons, as well as any harassment, insult, negative stereotyping, stigmatization or threat of such person or persons and any justification of all these forms of expression – that is based on a non-exhaustive list of personal characteristics or status that includes race, colour, language, religion or belief, nationality or national or ethnic origin, as well as descent, age, disability, sex, gender, gender identity and sexual orientation."

Nikos Paleologos, photo reporter with SOOC agency, explains how the media has been covering the big refugee influx and the way hate speech has re-entered the mainstream of Greek society.

Nikos was there when boats full of people were arriving in Greek islands. He explains to Sotiris & Aristea the way the European and national media reacted and handled the situation. It has started as a shock for everyone. No one experienced something like that before. It was a new normality that the whole society had to cope with.

News outlets as facilitators of public debate are widely considered as a strategic tool for managing the increasing diversity in society. When covering the arrivals of asylum seekers in Europe throughout 2015-2016 however, the media has played a central role in framing these events as a 'crisis'. This perspective contributed to negative and sometimes hostile attitudes amongst the public towards the newcomers.

Mo tells Sotiris about his trip from Turkey to Lesvos to Athens, applying for asylum in Greece, and how his life has changed since he left Syria.

Since 2015, Europe has become a destination of choice for more than half a million asylum seekers from Syria. Mo is one of them. He left Syria in 2017, worn down by a war that, after seven years, appears to have no end in sight. On this episode, he unfolds the story of his displacement and why he can't return to his country.

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In May 2018, the number of refugees and migrants in Greece stood at more than 60,000, including about 14,000 on the islands. During their journeys, refugees and migrants experience inhuman living conditions, including forced detention, violence, and even witnessing death. Due to their uncertain asylum status and limited or no access to public services, their lives have become unstable and the promise of a better future is fading away.

The European Union started closing its borders to refugees and migrants in October 2015, when Hungary blocked asylum seekers from reaching Western Europe through the Balkans. Since then, Greece has become something like a reception hall for people seeking asylum in Europe. That month alone, the U.N. recorded more than 200,000 refugees and migrants crossing from Turkey to Greece - all of them bound for Western Europe.

Director of the Asylum Service in Greece, Dr. Markos Karavias, explains the procedure of becoming recognised as a refugee in Europe and why it takes so long.

There is a story in Europe that the refugee crisis is over and that the numbers of arrivals are going down. That doesn't apply to countries like Greece or Cyprus. On our first episode, Markos Karavias tells Aristea about the growing number of asylum applications in Greece, the lack of competent interpreters, and what an asylum seeker should do in order to become or at least try to become documented.

As of December 2018, almost 200,000 asylum applications have been lodged in Greece. According to data shared by the Asylum Service, in 2015, there were 13,187 applications submitted - a 39,8% increase from 2014 (9,431 applications). The EU-Turkey statement, signed one year later, on March 18, 2016, didn't really stop asylum seekers from risking their lives in the Aegean, and the numbers went up by 287,1% with 51,053 applications in total. The statistics for 2017 and 2018 show that Greece has turned from merely a country of transit into a country of destination for asylum seekers fleeing war in Middle East, with 58,642 and 61,760 applications submitted per year respectively.