At Mazí, we provide housing, first and foremost. This is community-based housing. This means shared living. Care, effort and maintenance is put into facilitating cooperative environments in-house between residents of different backgrounds. Our Safety Rules seek to establish and maintain communities with cultures of reciprocity and respect, by taking violence off the table as an option, and putting agency at the forefront of everyone’s decision-making.
We work with young asylum seeking and refugee men because when we were founded in 2019 there were no services providing housing for adult men. Most displaced men, including those evicted from minors’ shelters after their 18th birthday, had few options but overcrowded basements, dangerous and dirty travellers’ houses, or the parks and the streets.
5 Keys to Social Inclusion
Around this we create access to healthcare, to legal support, to employability and training programmes so that people can build what they need and what they want to move on independently from our support.
When a resident moves into a Mazí apartment, they meet with their caseworker to identify and discuss the support they might need. Whether that’s support with the asylum procedure, finding Greek language classes, or looking for employment opportunities, residents decide what is right for them. This is central to our person centred approach. In 2023, this was undertaken through 193 1-1 case meetings.
Through our work with young men over the last 3 years we have identified five key areas of support. When one of our residents is accomplished in this area, we think of it like a key, opening doors to engage with society. Without these ‘keys’ life can be very difficult.
These keys are:
- Legal status. Our right to exist in a place. Our right to move around the streets without fear of being detained by the authorities. Manifested by having a physical ID, a passport.
- Health. Mental, physical: the ability not only to be, but also to feel, strong. To wake up in the morning and look ahead, rather than cover your face with your pillow. And knowing that if you fall in the street you can go to the hospital and will get medical care.
- Language. The ability to communicate with people around you.
- Network. Support: people who have your back, people who look out for you, people around you who know you, who love you, who will pick you up when you are down, and push you further when you are tired.
- Employability. Money ! The ability to earn money, to pay rent or buy food or go for a coffee with a friend, or to plan for the future.
At Mazí we create the conditions to gather all of these keys. To access legal status, to improve health, to learn the language, to build the network, to become employable and legally employed.