Eurorelief exists to serve and show compassion to those suffering in Greece and the surrounding regions.
We aim to give hope and restore dignity by providing emergency relief services and initiating recovery work in response to humanitarian crises.
Our Story
Eurorelief was founded in 2005 in Athens and first deployed to Kalamata, Greece, in response to deadly earthquakes where teams provided and set up mobile homes for earthquake victims. In the years that followed, we sent many more teams to provide humanitarian aid after various disasters in Greece and the surrounding region.
In September 2015, in response to the massive influx of refugees and migrants to the Greek Aegean islands, Eurorelief started operations on Lesvos.
We first responded by receiving refugee boats at the Korakas Lighthouses where the majority of people were arriving.
We then transitioned into managing the stage two camp in Skala Sykamnias. Here we provided tea and a snack to new arrivals, assisted with clothing and blanket distribution, hosted refugees that needed to stay overnight and organized departures to Moria camp.
In the winter of 2016, we transitioned again to start work in the Moria Reception Hotspot and moved our operations to Moria. Here’s a video of what life was like in the old camp.
Since the fires that devastated Moria camp on September 8, 2020, we have resumed our operations in Mavrovouni, the new temporary camp.
In Spring 2021, we were asked to bring our experience to the newly established CCAC (Closed Controlled Access Center) Zervou on Samos. We helped with the relocation from the old camp, Vathy, to the new facility. We are now involved in community engagement activities and camp logistics services.
In the early stages of the war on Ukraine, we helped set up a container camp for Ukrainian refugees near Bucharest, Romania, and deployed a few of our volunteers to the Romanian-Ukrainian and the Polish-Ukrainian borders to support grassroots emergency responses there.
From February 2023 to March 2023, we had a team in the earthquake region in Hatay, Türkiye, serving the local population as the needs arose and changed: We helped run a foodline, set up tents and tiny wooden houses, distributed hundreds of boxes of food and hygiene items, offered children’s activities in informal camps and just lent a hand where necessary.
As Türkiye has long come out of emergency mode, we are currently exploring what our contribution can be in the new situation.
In 2023, when floods in central Greece caused widespread devastation, leaving many families homeless and in need of urgent assistance, our teams came alongside affected families for several weeks, providing hands-on hope through clean up and distributions.
We are currently looking into options in Cyprus and on the Greek mainland.
“It is a huge privilege to work with so many volunteers who are serving with passion and integrity, shouldering huge responsibilities, thinking outside the box and working hard with a smile. Every one of them, in many different ways, has left hope in their wake—not only in the lives of displaced people, but also in my own heart. We all need hope to keep going!”
— Andrea Wegener, Development Director
Our Values
Count on us culture.
We are reliable. What we say, we do.
Cultivate honour & respect.
We recognize and seek to return honour, dignity, and respect to the people we serve, our partners in work, and the governments we work with.
Our hearts move our hands.
We move to action based on what impacts our hearts. We never want to stop with just empathy or compassion. Our desire is to channel those feelings into practical service.
Spiritual community.
We value faith and the way it draws people into deeper relationships with one another. We create environments where volunteering is about something more than just good work.
Together we are better.
We choose partnership and collaboration to leverage unique strengths to serve people better.
With the people.
We place people above politics connecting directly with those in crisis. We are passionate about the power of relationships to positively impact the lives of people we serve.
Join us
“We are like best friends and brothers. Working together is great for our future, because this is the first step in interacting and working with other nationalities. I learn a lot about other cultures and how to work in a respectful way.”
— Community Volunteer Translator
Financial Viability
Eurorelief does not receive government or public funds. We rely solely on private donations as well as the occasional grant for specific projects, and Gifts in Kind sent through our logistics partners.
Apart from a handful of salaried local staff members in our office (including one director), all our workers from administration to education, including all levels of leadership and even the team of directors, are technically “volunteers”.
They do not receive any salary, allowance or stipend through Eurorelief but use their personal money or raise their own support to pay for their travel and living costs on the ground.