Blog

Welcome back, Hadi!

Meet Hadi! Hadi started as a community volunteer a couple of weeks ago and has already had such a huge impact on both the OHF team and our beneficiaries. Originally working as a volunteer teacher at the International School of Peace at OHF on Lesvos, Hadi is now helping specifically with community outreach and involvement

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A doctor on holiday

Meet Krisha! Krisha has just left us after having spent 3 weeks volunteering for OHF and we can’t believe how quickly the time passed! As a doctor back in the UK, Krisha (in true doctor spirit) chose to spend her 3-week break from work continuing to help others… how she finds the time we don’t

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Always there when you need him

Meet Lars! Lars just left OHF after volunteering with us for 3 weeks. Either in the cafe, at the welcome desk or on the rooftop, Lars was always around to help wherever someone was needed! When asked about why he decided to come to OHF, Lars said: ‘I wanted to get an insight into the

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The new multi-talent in our security team

Meet Mahdi! Mahdi works as a member of the security team here at OHF and has been with us for just over a month. A regular attender of OHF when based on Lesvos, Mahdi decided to work with us when he came to Athens, and can usually be found greeting visitors at the Welcome Desk

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Creating art with a smile

Meet Emma! Emma, an art therapist and textile designer from Scotland, volunteered with us in the summer. With her calm, friendly, helpful presence; open mind and big heart, she worked at the Café and re-started the art table, where she facilitated kids and adults alike to express themselves through arts and crafts.Fariba, who worked very

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Goodbye Yahia!

As announced in the last newsletter, we say goodbye here to our coordination team member, Yahia. Yahia has been a valuable team member for several years and we would like to thank him from the bottom of our hearts for everything he’s done for One Happy Family. Yahia, with your calmed, level-headed and reflective nature,

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Dedicated without too many frills

Meet Fariba, in charge of our café at the Victoria Community Centre! If you ask around about Fariba, you will only hear sweet words.One of her teammates says of her: “She is kind and an excellent team player, always ready to collaborate, very active and involved in the activities of our community”.Our coordinator Akis says

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Goodbye Nicolas!

As announced, there is another coordination team member we have to say goodbye to: Nicolas! Nicolas joined our project in Lesvos in 2017 and co-founded the Swiss organisation One Happy Family. After being a board member in Switzerland, he joined the Lesvos coordination team. He was responsible for working with our partner organisations, donors on

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Once OHF, always OHF

Meet Abbas! Even though OHF in Athens is now smaller, we still need important team members to make our community center a safe and beautiful place. One of them is Abbas. He is our new member of the security team. But actually, he has been part of the One Happy Family for several years. In

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All the best for you, Fifie

Our coordinating team member Fifie says: OHF will always be my home. And we say: You will always be an important part of this One Happy Family, even though we had to say goodbye to you, a very valuable team member, this month. Our dear Fifie has decided to leave the coordination team and move

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OHF: a place for lessons, homework and coffee

​​Meet the family: Najibula Najibula is one of our regular visitors in the Victoria community center, ever since Drop in the Ocean started offering their education programmes to the community here in Athens. He is a dedicated student who attends English lessons with them. He is from Afghanistan and has been in Greece with his

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The always active yet quiet author

Meet the Family: Helge Educator, psychologist, published author, co-founder of a museum, dance enthusiast… Helge has so many hats; but today we will focus on her as a beloved, long-term OHF volunteer. Helge first came to OHF in 2019 and stayed for 10 months. Sitting at one corner in the busy main hall, she started

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OHF has changed my life

This speech was given at the farewell by our Head of Security Ernest. It was too beautiful not to share!“Thank you everyone for attending to say goodbye to OHF Lesvos, before we meet again in Athens.  Today is a special day for me, and very important for me to stand in front of you. Since

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The Greek all-rounder in the family

Meet Fotini!  Our Greek teacher, our allrounder, coordinator of Sporos garden project at OHF, and as one of our community volunteers says, “one of the pillars of OHF”! Fotini, from Athens, has been with us for two years now. She met with OHF as she was continuing her university studies on the island. She started

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A spanish ping-pong and covid-testing expert

Meet Gustavo! Gustavo is our fantastic and funny volunteer from Spain, who has been with us at OHF for 3 months now. Here, people call him Moustafa, because it is a Farsi name.  Before volunteering, Gustavo was a visitor at OHF, and since those days, one of his favourite things to do at OHF is

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OHF got a new generation

Meet our OHF babies! 👶🏻👶🏼 After long months of waiting, our extended family has grown!  We finally got to meet Selin and Hussein. The two beautiful babies of our community volunteers Mohammed and Hosein.  Hosein has left Lesvos with his family and the newborn Selin to continue his journey to a better life. We’ll give

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We fell in love with the project

Meet Arturo and June Our new amazing social media guys from Italy and Spain have been here with us since October. Arturo is a very smiling and charismatic guy. He is very creative and always shows it by coming up with new ideas for the community. Arturo likes to be at the registration or at

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Coming back every year

Meet Romy! Romy is our lovely volunteer from Switzerland. She has been coming back to One Happy Family every year since we opened our gates, which we are incredibly thankful for since she is a ray of sunshine, making OHF a happier place for both our visitors and volunteers.  Her favourite things to do here

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Goodbye to our technology extraordinaire and teacher

Meet Hosain! This month we said another special goodbye to one of our incredible volunteers, Hosain.  Hosain has been with us for more than a year. During his time here he spread happiness and joy to all of our visitors and volunteers.  Hosain is our technology extraordinaire. He ran computer classes for our volunteers and

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OHF’s IT god

Meet Nicolas! Nicolas, our incredible coordinator from Switzerland, has been with us for 3,5 years! He is our partner coordinator but also our IT god. One of his latest projects is our new fabulous website for the visitors. His favourite thing to do at One Happy Family is going around to the different partners and

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