ATHENS – The Stavros Niarchos Foundation (www.SNF.org) has approved a new grant, totaling €5,717,000, to the Nonprofit Organization PRAKSIS, in support of the program Syn sto Plin (Plus to Minus) and specifically the Social Housing project, which is implemented in Attica and Thessaloniki, Greece. The grant ensures support for the project for the next two years and is part of the Foundation’s Initiative Against the Greek Crisis.
The SNF’s new grant was announced in the US at the annual event of the Washington OXI Day Foundation (https://www.oxidayfoundation.org/),during which PRAKSIS was honored with the Second Annual Stavros Niarchos Foundation Philotimo Award, for their outstanding contribution to the field of social welfare and their commitment to serve the underprivileged populations of Greece.
For the last four years, the purpose of the Social Housing program, which is designed and implemented by PRAKSIS, under the initiative of and through a main grant by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation, has been the prevention of homelessness and the provision of substantial support to families living in conditions of poverty or financial uncertainty, due to the continuing economic crisis in Greece. From 2012 until today, the program has provided support for more than 2,500 families. They have been offered economic, food, medical and psychosocial assistance, covering their basic household needs and, therefore, helping families maintain their financial and residential independence. The program also includes support from social workers, employment specialists and financial literacy experts, who work with each family with a targeted and goal-based strategy, empowering them to escape poverty in a sustainable way.
Most of the families which have participated in the program from 2012 to date, have already secured employment and have reduced or even wiped out their debts, while the risk of homelessness has decreased or completely disappeared for all participating families.
The Foundation’s new grant is expected to further strengthen the program as, over the next two years, it will provide support to an additional 2,000 unemployed families, in Attica and Thessaloniki.
Andreas Dracopoulos, Co-President of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation, stated: “Andreas Dracopoulos, Co-President of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation, stated: “The new grant in support of the Social Housing Program aims to protect families whose lives have been severely disrupted by the crisis. Furthermore, this grant comes right after PRAKSIS was honored with the Annual Stavros Niarchos Foundation Philotimo Award, as a way to recognize the organization’s efforts to protect all those who are mostly in need of assistance and a stronger safety net today.”
For more information about the program, please contact PRAKSIS, at [email protected].
About the Stavros Niarchos Foundation
The Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) (www.SNF.org) is one of the world’s leading private international philanthropic organizations, making grants in the areas of arts and culture, education, health and sports, and social welfare. The Foundation funds organizations and projects that are expected to achieve a broad, lasting and positive impact for society at large, focusing on vulnerable groups such as children and the elderly, and also exhibit strong leadership and sound management.The Foundation also seeks actively to support projects that facilitate the formation of public-private partnerships as an effective means for serving public welfare.
From 1996 until today, the Stavros Niarchos Foundation has made grant commitments of $1.79 billion / €1.50 billion, through 3,252 grants to nonprofit organizations in 111 nations around the world.
In June 2015, the Foundation announced a new initiative, totaling $112 million (€100.000.000), complementary to its usual grantmaking activities, to help alleviate the adverse effects of the deepening crisis in Greece, providing immediate support to the most vulnerable members of the Greek society. This new initiative follows the two previous initiatives of 2012 and 2013, totaling $130 million (€100.000.000) each. The initiative of 2012, which has now been completed, aimed to provide immediate relief against the effects of the socioeconomic crisis, while the one in 2013 aims to address the high percentage of youth unemployment, seeking to create better employment opportunities for the young.
The Foundation’s largest single gift is the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center (SNFCC), in Athens, to be completed in 2016. The project’s total budget of $831mil (€596mil) includes two grants of $6 mil (€5mil) each to the National Library of Greece and the Greek National Opera respectively, aiming to support the organizations’ transition to their new facilities. The project, designed by Renzo Piano, includes the new facilities of the National Library of Greece, and of the Greek National Opera, as well as the Stavros Niarchos Park. The SNFCC is a testament and a commitment to the country’s future. It is also an engine of short- to mid-term economic stimulus.
About PRAKSIS
PRAKSIS is a nonprofit organization which aims, through a series of humanitarian and medical action programs, to combat the social and financial exclusion of socially vulnerable groups and to defend their individual and social rights. Their spectrum of actions covers all Greece and particularly the areas of Attica, Central Macedonia, the island of Lesvos and Patras.
