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Safe Water Sports is a non-profit organization, founded the summer of 2015, whose primary scope is the enhancement of safety standards for water related sports and recreational water activities. Safe Water Sports is purely a voluntary initiative and does not receive any funding or financial support from our government. Our vision is to ultimately make our country an example for others to emulate regarding safety requirements and proper standards through knowledge and support to individuals within the athletic industry and to businesses affiliated with recreational water activities and water sports. Our initiative, beyond aiming to improve safety and prevent potential accidents, has a distinct underlying nature of growth and development for our country's vital Industry, tourism. Safe Water Sports can develop into a key contributor to improving Greece's global image to potential travellers selecting our country for their holidays and leisure activities. Involving our citizens is of prime importance to our efforts and initiative. The general public is our central focal point, which we intend to educate, inform, and mobilize, so that each and every public or private sector agency recognizes their importance and involvement. The focus for any public or private sector organization affiliated with aquatics, whether water sports or recreational activities, should clearly revolve around the safety needs of all participants. Safe Water Sports relies heavily on collective actions of our citizens and uses the power of information and technology to promote and strengthen the predominate role of citizens within their area of activities. Safe Water Sports aims to become the central reference point for all water activities taking place in Greece. We want to give people accurate and reliable information on the water-related sports and recreational activities. In Safe Water Sports, citizens can seatch and retrieve all LICENSED watersports centers offering various water activities (e.x. sports, entertainment, diving, leisure) in our country, together with the necessary information related to the applicable laws and safety regulations.
Founded in 1987 in Door County, the Door County YMCA quickly became the community leader in youth based programming, emphasizing fair play, inclusion of all and a focus on character development with the core values of caring honesty, respect, honesty and responsibility modeled and taught in all programming. The YMCA has also become the center of recreation and exercise for youth, adults, families, and seniors throughout the service area. As a relatively small and rural county, the YMCA in two locations in the county is the center of health and wellness programs. YMCAs are at the heart of community life in neighborhoods and towns across the nation. Ys are for people of all faiths, races, abilities, ages and incomes. No one is turned away for inability to pay. In Door County, this has definitely been the case for the past 21 years.The Door County YMCA has a volunteer board that sets policy, while a CEO manages the operation with full-time and part-time staff and volunteer leaders. Memberships to the YMCA allow members to use the facilities of the Door County YMCA and participate in hundreds of program opportunities throughout the year. Memberships are purchased on a monthly or annual basis and financial assistance up to 90% are offered to those with demonstrated need. Membership is not required to participate in YMCA programs and are open to all in the community. The YMCA meets local community needs through organized programs and activities. In its own way, every Y nurtures the healthy development of children and teens; strengthens families; and makes its community a healthier, safer, better place to live.Longtime leaders in community-based health and fitness and aquatics, Ys teach kids to swim, offer exercise classes for people with disabilities, lead adult exercise and fitness classes, and sponsor teen programming which teaches leadershibut is not limited to camping, child care (the Y movement is the nation's largest not-for-profit provider of child care), teen clubs, environmental programs, substance abuse prevention, youth sports, family nights, leadership and job training, gymnastics, dance, aquatics safety, team sports, senior aerobics, exercise for special populations and special needs and many more.Over its lifetime the YMCA has evolved to be much more broad and inclusive, than its "Christian" name would imply. Christian principles are still at the core of the YMCA mission, but the YMCA enjoys the influence of all positive role models and faiths in the community. The Y movement has always been nonsectarian and accepts those of all faiths at all levels of the organization. Today half of all YMCA members and program members are female, and half are under age 18.
KEC's mission is to create and offer innovative services and programs for people with intellectual disabilities so they may live fulfilling lives of independence and quality in their homes and communities. KEC is a civic organization that strives to meet the needs of people with disabilities in order to improve their position in society, secure a high quality of life and realize positive social change so that people with disabilities will be accepted as equal members of society. Our vision is to be a synonym for an NGO that is constantly raising the standards in the field of social welfare, improving the quality of life and degree of social inclusion for people with disabilities, realizing their human rights in the fields of employment, social welfare, health care and culture as well in the realm of raising public awareness. We aim to constantly be rethinking how and why we deliver services to our community to make sure that they are relevant and meaningful. KEC was established in 2002 in order to ensure that young adults with intellectual disabilities have the opportunity to participate in the community and that their on-going educational and social needs are met. All of KEC's programs are developed in close partnership with our beneficiaries and their parents and guardians. In response to this vital input, KEC is constantly creating innovative programs or reshaping existing ones to meet the new interests and challenges of its beneficiaries. We work with the community to build a partnership that fosters acceptance and strives for inclusion. KEC is committed to enhancing the quality of life, and realizing the potential of all people with developmental disabilities. KEC mission is fulfilled through three primary program areas: a day center, work programming and a social enterprise. The day center was KEC first program and has been running since the organization's inception in 2002. Today, KEC is fortunate enough to provide this program in a modern new facility located in the center of Belgrade.This large and well-equipped facility was made possible through the joint efforts of the City of Belgrade and the U.S. Department of Defense. Both of these institutions recognized KEC's important and unique contribution to the lives of people with special needs in Belgrade and joined forces to create this truly special facility. As a result of its high caliber program KEC's day center was accredited by the Serbian Ministry of Labor, Employment, Veterans and Social Policy. This accreditation is further evidence of KEC's distinctive work on behalf of people with developmental disabilities. In order to ensure that people with special needs are truly a part of the larger community in 2004 KEC embarked in a program to build partnerships with the business community. The program started with McDonald's and has grown to include over 30 companies, institutions and organizations across Belgrade and almost 200 beneficiaries. Based on the company's needs KEC matches its beneficiaries with work placement positions. KEC provides all the necessary forms of support, training and evaluation. Its experience in creating and implementing this program made it possible for KEC to become the licensed trainer for such programs in Serbia. Today KEC helps other organizations implement similar programs in their communities. Finally, in an effort to strive for financial self-sustainability KEC launched a small enterprise, Gardenika, to produce natural snack foods. The enterprise's fruit rolls are sold in stores and markets throughout Serbia and can be found in corporate cafeterias and in their PR packages. In addition to providing jobs for KEC beneficiaries any profit will be channeled back into the NGO. Overall, KEC aims to ensure that people with intellectual disabilities living in the community or returning to the community after a life in an institution have meaningful fulfilling lives. We shape our programs around the users needs and desires. The Serbian government is working towards closing down its massive network of institutions providing long term residential care for people with intellectual disabilities. So on the one hand it must find a way to prevent more people from entering the institutions and on the other hand work to create and support programming for those who are leaving the institutions. KEC's activities are a best practice model for achieving both of these goals. The organization supports families so they can keep their loved one with special needs at home and helps those leaving the institutions to fill their lives with interesting and meaningful programs when they rejoin the community.
The Alawite Islamic Charitable Association AICA, a non-profit non-governmental organization located mainly in Jabal Mohsen - Tripoli and Akkar, registered under the decree No. 4500/1950 , was founded in 1950 in order to claim the rights of the Alawite Muslim community through development and social projects as well as Health care and medical services. Its projects and activities aim to mitigate all forms of discrimination towards civil Rights access (medical, health, education, work opportunities, or any other additional required support), raise individual and collective awareness, mainstream protection and disseminate risks prevention. The intervention strategy consists on holistic and sustainable community development, Advocacy and Peace Building, education and training, primary health care and medical services, religious services. Since 1950, AICA has created several institutions in order to ensure specific programs/activities responding to Alawite community and individuals' needs, such as: Alzahraa Medical Dispensary House of Wisdom Center The Social Hall Alduha School Mosque of Imam Ali bin Abi Talib (AS) Mosque of Lady Fatima Alzahra (AS) VISION AICA ensures equity and access to Human Rights for vulnerable individuals and communities with facing any kind of discrimination, as for the Alawite Islamic Communities. AICA intends encouraging community development, through access to Rights/education, health, protection and economic empowerment from apart, and from another part, facilitating Psycho-social Support and Peace-building through Sport, art and different community initiatives. MISSION In reference to values and principles of Imam Ali (AS), AICA develops a humanitarian emergency response action, development and benevolence, targeting the whole community through adopting an integrated global ecosystem approach based on Rights (health care services, social awareness, cultural and educational services via its primary health care center, its schools, PSS center, Wisdom House/ Beit EL Hekme) and all its Alawite religious institutions), based on needs of vulnerable communities. MAIN GOAL AICA intends leading a global networking through faith in potentials, reinforcing positive social values, resources management, creating opportunities, strategic partnerships and community development. VALUES Based mainly on Imam Ali (AS) values, then with referring to Human Rights Declaration Charter and Social Work basis, AICA Chosen basic values related to Development in general, and specifically for its intervention, such as: Collaboration Giving Humanity Human Dignity Social Justice Partnership Sustainability Identity Peaceful Life Values COMPONENTS OF ACTION Alzahraa Medical Dispensary as a primary health care center ensuring a number of doctors, providing health care services and workers in a safe, effective and proper performance and quality, equally to all beneficiaries (neither based on racism, nationality, religion, gender or age). House of Widsom Center is the social center of the Association which provides social, cultural and religious services to a large number of beneficiaries where: - A team conducting a geographical survey of Jabal Mohsen in order to assess the humanitarian situation then to ensure the appropriate assistance, whether in kind, material or services. - All kinds of activities whether awareness sessions, general culture, vocational rehabilitation and/or psychosocial support which are conducted by AICA employees or within the collaboration a number of local and international organizations. o Community Development: Community projects/ Livelihood and socioeconomic empowerment (especially the women empowerment project for cooking and preparing the substance "Beit ElMouneh", with acknowledge the remarkable initiative of Baskets of Peace's Substance) as well as encouraging several community led ... o Protection/ Education / Training: Qualitative Education (School in Akkar), Training for youth and Capacity Building of groups, communities and professionals. o Peace-building/ PSS through Support groups' discussions /Sport/ Arts/ Skills/ Workshops WHO WE ARE? A group of professionals and volunteers who aim community development and access to rights (Education/Health/Protection/Employment opportunities/Food/Personal skills' development ) with no discrimination, awareness and advocacy through awareness sessions and peace-building, support through encouraging youth led initiatives, and Psycho-Social Support through Arts, Sport as well as Productive workshops. WHY DO WE EXIST? We believe in human values and positive youth potential and we consider AICA exists to ensure a better access to basic Individuals' Rights and to assist vulnerable communities to rise-up facing their fact, believing in their potentials and values in order to think and make the necessary change into their lives. AICA calls for a social cohesion within respecting other's difference, a good communication and partnership to make Change through actions. WHAT WE DO? We provide community-based development program through education, Training, economic empowerment, women and youth's led based on Rights and acceptance of the different others in order to re-build peace and tie positive relations. We engage and empower vulnerable categories of community through combined projects to become programs such as Primary Health care; education; Protection; PSS via group discussions, arts and sports, Peace-building via livelihood training and workshops as well community led/initiatives, etc WHERE? We exist in Lebanon, since 1950, in Tripoli and Akkar.
ASYLUM PROTECTION CENTER (APC) was founded in 2007 and from the very beginning of the asylum system in Serbia (2008) has been providing legal, psychosocial and interaction/integration aid to exiles, asylum seekers and persons who have been granted asylum or other protection in the Republic of Serbia (with special focus to children and youth- providing legal, psychosocial, interaction/integration aid to minors, unaccompanied minors and youth). Activities of the APC as grass root organization are reflected through our strong presence and engagement at local levels in local communities, in order to establish a dialogue and interaction between asylum seekers/refugees/exiles and local citizens; primarily through the organization of public local events, exhibitions, fairs, asylum corners, interaction/integration, creative and other workshops, round tables, work of APC local networks of volunteers and APC interns, cultural mediators support and other events and activities in local communities, as well as through numerous collaborations with local governments, organizations, institutions, schools, local cultural and youth centers. APC political scientists and researchers actively work in the field of research and advocacy, using extensive APC experience and field data, in order to get to the root of issues and problems of the migration, asylum system and refugees, strengthening and spreading information to the wider general and local public and experts, advocating and fighting to reduce prejudice and xenophobia in local and general public thus building more tolerant and inclusive society in Serbia. Since its founding, lawyers, psychologists, pedagogues, social workers and translators that make up the APC/CZA team have worked first hand with the refugees and migrants in the first asylum centers. Since the opening of the Balkan route, our team can be found across all reception and transit centers, parks, buses, railways stations, at improvised shelters in open air surroundings by the border, in suburbs, on the streets, in forests and in institutions for youth. We have reunified families, discovered smuggling routes and found children who had been lost. Our team continues to protect persons from discrimination and violence, while simultaneously reporting abuse that are endured by vulnerable groups of migrants and refugees. With the help of Social work centers we have placed children in foster families, enabled the healthy births of children, provided birth certificates for refugee babies born in Serbia and reunified children with their families we have ultimately helped wherever we could. APC/CZA has established one of the first mobile applications in Europe - "Asylum in Serbia", providing not only all necessary basic information, placing mechanism tools for reporting abuse in the hands of migrants and refugees, that are necessary in their journey's through the country, or their long term stays in Serbia. With tireless legal assistance and interpretation of regulations, we managed to provide health care (primary, secondary and tertiary protection) to asylum seekers who should receive care equal to the rights of Serbian citizens. In cooperation with local communities in Bogovadja and Lajkovac, the APC/CZA team, as early as 2012 began enrolling the children of asylum seekers into the Serbian educational system, in both elementary and secondary education institutions. We currently continue with this practice and as a result of our engagement with children who attend elementary school in Belgrade, Krnjaca, Sjenica and Tutin, they are able to receive full-time education, have become excellent and thoroughly satisfied students. We are the first in Serbia to have begun the integration process of refugees and asylum seekers in the country- by assisting them to find work, accommodation, the obtaining of documents, ease in overcoming psychological problems and adaptation problems that may have resulted due to their new environment surroundings, regulations, mentality and the culture in Serbia. We have managed to validate and recognize the first pages of diplomas for those who received asylum in Serbia. We provided the first work permits for more than 40 asylum seekers and those who received asylum and established a legal practice enabling and ensuring them with the right to work. Furthermore, APC/CZA also led disputes before the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg in order to protect people from illegal deportations from Hungary and Serbia and managed to ensure fair and equitable proceedings before the competent institutions. Over the past ten years, we have legally informed more than 220,000 migrants, asylum seekers and refugees, about their rights and obligations in the country in which they are located. We lawfully advised more than 23,600 asylum seekers and represented them in asylum and other proceedings, as well as before Misdemeanor, Administrative, Constitutional Courts and other instances. Our psychologists advised and empowered more than 7,000 asylum-seekers and refugees who needed help - through social assistance, and workshops, we advised more than 3900 asylum seekers. We have held over 937 different workshops (cultural, creative, empowering, health, language, school preparatory, and integration, psychological) with more than 4000 asylum seekers taking part in our activities. We have crossed over 400,000 kilometers with our mobile teams across Serbia. Our web pages were visited by more than 180,000 different people this year alone. During the 2015 refugee crisis, the Center had legally advised more than 110 000 refugees, more than 31 000 children and more than 30 000 women. APC / CZA has trained and taught practices of how to work with children and vulnerable groups, to more than 100 interns and young professionals from the country and abroad. APC / CZA has the first and only accredited training programs for social workers in the social welfare system as well as an accredited training program for professional staff in the education system in the field of migrant / asylum / refugee work with a special emphasis on minors. We have built a volunteer network with over 170 volunteers. Today in Serbia there is no other organization working with refugees where one of its employees has not undergone training, professional development or had a job at with Asylum Protection Center. We are particularly proud of our work related to informing the local community about refugees and migrants - people who have fled from war, persecution, poverty, who have come from various cultures, while at the same time informing the migrants about Serbian culture, customs and the rules of their new environment surroundings. With all of what we have done and of course what has been done by the state and its institutions, who have a primary duty to manage and care about migration, enough has yet to be done to confidently say that the situation with refugees in Serbia is at a good place. Currently there are far more than 5000 migrants in Serbia, of which up to 4000 are housed in reception centers, while others are in the open, in forests, in suburbs, abandoned buildings or in alternative accommodation. The Balkan route is formally closed, but dozens of people continue to enter the country from Bulgaria and Macedonia every day, while in Vojvodina the largest number has accumulated near the borders of Croatia, Hungary and Romania. Illegal deportation of people from Croatia, Hungary and Romania to Serbia is a continuous and illegal practice, and people have been illegally pushed back to Serbia, even in instances when they had not previously travelled through the country. This brings Serbia into the position of becoming a buffer zone for migration and as a new hotspot on the migration route, which ultimately leads to extensive and far-reaching consequences for the future. The longer retention of these people in Serbia and their increasingly difficult transition into EU countries, if that is their goal, requires a change in approaching this problem. Migrants currently have difficulty accessing accommodation and asylum procedures, and registration. They are violated of their fundamental rights as asylum seekers in fair and fast procedures, free legal aid, freedom of movement. This places a vulnerable group of people who are often exposed to abuse and violence more and more, in situations of prejudice and prevents integration and interaction with the local environment, and community while promoting the use of smuggling and crime. These circumstances require a greater engagement by our organization in informing migrants and providing legal protection to asylum seekers and refugees in proceedings before all institutions, bodies and courts of the Republic, as well as monitoring the application of regulations and behavior on the ground through the process' of border monitoring and abuse. It is very important that our organization keeps its independence, professional and objective approach to problems, while continuing to cooperate with the media to objectively inform citizens and the public while continuing our fight against prejudice and disinformation. APC / CZA will continue to train and provide professional practices for young professionals with its accredited training programs for civil servants while working intensively with local communities. APC / CZA will furthermore continue its engagement in the integration of those who have received asylum in Serbia, as well as in supporting the system itself and pushing for the improvement of existing practices, and cooperation in the region. As well, our team will work with secular organizations at the European level who will also be a priority in the fight against prejudices, and in raising public awareness of these problems, in building solidarity and permanent networks of cross-border cooperation between organizations in Europe.