Greece
Diogenes NGO
The Greek Homeless Football Team was set up in in 2006 and made its debut appearance at the 2007 Homeless World Cup. Diogenes NGO was founded in 2010 to coordinate the “Kick out Poverty” project as well as other activities aimed at supporting socially excluded people, and to continue the work of the Greek Homeless Football Team.
Based in Athens, but with activities also running in other parts of Greece, Diogenes NGO focus mainly on homeless people, people living below the poverty line, people in substance abuse rehabilitation, asylum seekers, and illegal immigrants.
Country statistics
32 out of 189 in Human Development Index rating (UNDP, 2019)
$18, 080 Average annual salary per person (World Bank, 2021)
1.21 million refugees and migrants arrived in Greece between 2015-2021 (CIA Factbook, 2021).
Greece has a population of 10.5 million, with one third of this population living in and around Athens. Located in southern Europe, Greece has been suffering from a severe economic crisis since 2009, resulting in government bailouts and austerity measures.
Some estimates put Greece’s black market at 20-25% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as more people have stopped reporting their income to avoid paying taxes that, in some cases, have risen to 70% of an individual’s gross income (CIA Factbook, 2019).
Currently Greece’s unemployment total is 17.2%, with unemployment between the ages of 15-24 being 35.1% (UNDP, 2019).
From 2015-2021 there have been an estimated 1.21 million refugee and migrant arrivals in Greece. At the end of December 2020, an estimated 119,700 migrants and refugees were stranded in Greece since 2015-2016 (CIA Factbook, 2021).
This includes unaccompanied children, of which there are an estimated 5,000 (UNHRC, 2021).
STORIES from the region
