Ithaca Laundry (Ithaca) provides much-needed mobile laundry services for the homeless in Athens.

Our new grant of €11,745 will enable a person from a disadvantaged background to be employed for 12 months as a driver of one of the mobile laundry vans and to participate in a reintegration program delivered by Ithaca.

To date, 12 employees have participated in the reintegration program.  “THI Australia is proud to be a part of this program which provides employment opportunities for people from vulnerable social groups and provides them with new skills, counselling, and hope for long term employment, and at the same time restores dignity and self-esteem to the beneficiaries of the laundry service,” said THI Australia’s CEO, Stergitsa Zamagias-Hill.

Ithaca aims to improve living conditions and increase social inclusion through hygiene services, reintegrate vulnerable people into the labour market, and raise awareness about the problem of homelessness and poverty.

Each month a mobile laundry van receives approximately 250 visits by 100 beneficiaries. Clothes are left with the driver and volunteers, and the beneficiaries collect their laundered clothing the same day.

According to Ithaca there are 1,500 people living under street conditions in Athens, mainly in suburbs such as Omonia, Victoria, Thiseio, Metaxourgeio and Monastiraki. In addition, 18,500 people are considered homeless (according to the definition of the European ETHOS typology).

“We thank THI Australia for believing in the importance of the service we provide for homeless people in Athens and the reintegration program, and we welcome the opportunity to collaborate with an Australian charity as the Ithaca concept originated from Australia,” said Ithaca Laundry’s President, Athanasios Spiliopoulos.

The grant to Ithaca is one of four new grants, totalling AU$53,000, made possible by the generous donations to THI Australia’s Winter Appeal for Greece.

THI Australia is a registered charity, and all donations over $2 are tax deductible in Australia. If you wish to support THI Australia, please contact us at [email protected].