Wind of Renewal / Anemos Ananeosis is a social cooperative, constituted in Greece in 2014 for the promotion of social cooperative and responsible economy, social entrepreneurship, green-circular economy, incorporation of democracy and human rights in financial and social life, as well as eco-social innovation.
It is the initiator of a community model for hosting and inclusion of refugees, the WELCOMMON refugees center, for the most vulnerable refugees (9/2016-2/2018). It was our proposal for the role that the social economy could play in inclusion issues and intercultural dialogue, combining the hosting of vulnerable persons with new models of social inclusion, empowerment, co-existence and mobilization of people in need in general, not just refugees
Wind of Renewal / Anemos Ananeosis runs from 7/2018 the new project WELCOMMON Hostel, a new Hostel in Athens, with social impact and also a social experiment. We are combining two “different” aims: sustainable tourism, green and social innovation with social inclusion, art, intercultural dialogue.
We are part of the social change we want to see happen.
• 5 floors of the WELCOMMON HOSTEL are dedicated for sustainable tourism
• 2 floors for social inclusion, social and green entrepreneurship activities, intercultural dialogue and art work.
We are looking for new models of sustainable tourism, new knowledge of entrepreneurship (social, green), promoting greater awareness on fair social changes we need.
Although the building is no longer a refugee hosting center and has been refurbished into a modern facility, two floors of the WELCOMMON Hostel are used as an open center for social empowerment, dialogue and inclusion. The aim is to create also new employment opportunities for everyone in areas such as up-cycling, ethnic cuisines, culture, green / cyclic economy, energy efficiency and others. Our societies must not accept generations being lost, we must not leave young persons, Greeks, migrants, refugees behind.
We offer in daily basis classes (e.g. for language, painting, puppet show, music etc) with the support of volunteers to about 120 refugees, migrants, local people, tourists; we work for the empowerment and training of our guests and design interactive workshops for the professional training and promotion of the abilities and qualifications of refugees, especially the young people, along with Greek nationals, in order to be able to find their way in our society and for the benefit of our societies (see attached a brief report about our activities with refugees).
Our basic need is to make the Hostel in 2 years financial sustainable and subsequently the income of the Hostel is high enough to finance additional programs of social impacts, benefits and inclusion as well as energy transition and climate protection. This means marketing the aims and needs of the WELCOMMON HOSTEL to networks and carriers, universities and schools, in order to consider our Hostel when they visit Athens to support our activities.
We promote Energy Transition
Anemos Ananeosis / Wind of Renewal participates in two programs of European Climate Initiative and promotes
a) education and awareness of 200 teachers from 73 school from Athens and the participation of thousands of students in order to raise awareness about climate and reduction of energy consumption in schools.
b) The training of 11 Greek young people (at the same time 11 young people in Spain) is aimed to obtain professional qualifications for young people to promote the energy control in schools and other buildings to implement the innovative natural climate systems and practices that will transform schools into zero-emission buildings
In collaboration with the partners of Graeducation program we have recently trained, more than 100 teachers of primary schools and professors of the secondary education on renewable energy sources topics focus in vocational education of Green skills and professions field.
We want to make our innovative WELCOMMON HOSTEL, a new Hostel in Athens with social and green impact more energy efficient as well as a demonstration center for energy efficient systems, a zero emission building, a training center for energy transition and climate protection in collaboration with different organizations, research centers, energy cooperative, financial institutions.
