The woman, like a tree with deep roots and strong branches, grows and flourishes in every place that accepts and supports her.
With a message filled with meaning, strength, and hope, the women of the Open Accommodation Center “A Step Forward” of Doctors of the World, under the guidance of visual artist Sevi Kritikou, created a unique artwork dedicated to themselves, offering a piece of their soul to the space they live in every day.
Through creativity, these women celebrate their resilience and their ability to bloom, despite the hardships they have endured and the challenges they continue to face. Every colour, every mark they leave becomes a symbolic expression of their will to live and their strength to move forward.
We would like to thank Trakadas for their generous sponsorship, which helped us bring this initiative to life with love and enthusiasm.
Without nature there is no life. So there is no life without woman. This is a thought that was generated in 25-year-old A.N. from Zimbabwe, by her participation in the group mural that now illuminates the Open Accommodation Centre “A Step Forward”. “A Step Forward” is a place where women like A.N. can feel safe, strong and optimistic about their next step in life again, slowly leaving behind the difficulties and dangers of their refugee journey. For themselves, for their children and for their future. The group, handmade mural at the entrance of the structure was an empowerment and entertainment activity for the beneficiaries, on the occasion of International Women’s Day (within the month of March). The implementation and recording of the action was produced in the context of the support of the operation of the Open Accommodation Centre “A Step Forward” by the Special Secretariat for Migration of Switzerland in cooperation with the Ministry of Immigration and Asylum of Greece and Médecins du Monde in the programmatic framework “Swiss-Greek Cooperation Programme 2023-2026” for the reduction of economic and social inequalities. We thank the artist Sevi Kritiko for her cooperation in coordinating the action and encouraging the women who participated. We would like to thank PandaVision Greece for the video production and editing. The materials used were kindly provided by Trakadas.