#PINOR – Interview with Generation 2.0 RED

Asociación Projuven interviewed Generation 2.0 RED on its work in the field of refugees and migration.


Generation 2.0 for Rights, Equality & Diversity (Generation 2.0 RED) is a nonprofit organization consisted of young people who fight for the rights of socially vulnerable groups, regardless of their origin, ethnicity, religion, gender or sexual orientation.

What are the biggest challenges you must face in your daily work?

Each Member of our organization has a different role to cover and the challenges we have to face change depending on our activities. We can divide them mainly in two parts: the first one concerns the migrants of second generation, originally the target at the base of our organization; the second one, instead, concerns the nowadays so called “refugees’ crisis”. People we receive everyday in the office are mainly asking about Greek citizenship, resident permits, international protection or a job. For this reason we offer different services: we have legal and career counselling, we give access for the first step to require the international protection, we organize events both to inform about change in the law and to integrate people, such as the intercultural basketball tournament where Greeks, Greeks of second generation and asylum seekers play together. Recently we started to run a shelter for unaccompanied children and we are going to give Greek and English lessons.

Every day we get into the same problems: slow and bad functioning services that make procedures endless. The difficulties in having access to services bring too many times to a lack of human rights for asylum seekers that can be arrested if the permit expires and that, in some cases, are living on the streets. Many times we found ourselves managing a high number of people, due to the slow and bad functioning procedure to require the international protection. Many times, people that fled wars many years ago and have been working thanks to a working visa, could be arrested because they don’t have any more the permission and they have to do the same slow procedure as the people who have just arrived.

What do you think would be needed in Greece to promote the integration of immigrants?

Programs. I think there is a lack of well organized programs here in Greece. The majority of well-functioning services and events for Third Country Nationals are offered by NGOs and volunteers but there is not an organized system from the “high”.

In your opinion, how the problem of refugees and immigrants in Greece will develop in the coming years?

If we compare the nowadays situation of refugees and the same situation 25 years ago, we can see there has been an improvement. However, differently from some years ago, the number of Third Country Nationals has completely changed and, for this reason, the improvement is still weak compared with the needs. The situation will mostly depend on the legislations (both on national EU level). For example, with the reintroduction of Dublin III in Greece, in the future Third Country Nationals that left their fingerprints in Greece, could be sent back to Greece. At the moment, the country is not able to host them in dignity places. Personally I don’t see interest in a change, but I really hope I am wrong.

What do we have to improve in the future to avoid today’s problems?

Migrants will continue coming, it does not matter if there are deals that try to stop them. They left their country, lived so many difficulties that even if a weaker flux is possible, nobody will really stop them. We should try to avoid the death on the Mediterranean Sea, and for this reason it would be better to build humanitarian cordons to try to reduce the deaths. The other important aspect concerns integration. All EU countries should make an effort in order to guarantee the integration of people, because lack of integration means no future: it means drug addiction, prostitution, criminality. And they are more dangerous and expensive than integration. There are good examples of successful integration stories at local level so we all know it is possible.

If you have a message for Europe what you want to say? 

The message to EU is especially one: EU institutions have to be closer to reality, have to speak with people, NGOs working personally on the field and that, for this reason, have to face the difficulties of the ground. Otherwise the risk is to take decisions that does not take into account the real situation and that, for this reason, can be very dangerous.

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