Sign the petition for Human Rights for children and young adults with disabilities in Greece

Help us to bring meaningful changes to the Child Care Center in Lechaina (previously known as KEPEP)!

Sign our petition on change.org:

https://www.change.org/p/efi-bekou-provide-human-rights-for-children-and-young-adults-with-disabilities-in-greece

Help us to raise more attention and share the petition in your social networks!

The petition is adressed to 

•  Marina Koutsouri, the responsible General Secretary of Welfare for the institution from the Ministry of Labour and Social Security and Welfare Greece
• The Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) of the United Nations
• Nils Muižnieks, Commissioner for Human Rights of the European Union

We request the following changes to happen:

1. Immediately recruit in house dedicated and specialised medical staff, such as a doctor, psychologists, special education teachers, social workers, speech therapists, occupational therapists, physiotherapists and respectable numbers of trained nurses.

2. Provide extensive and professional training for the current nurses in caring for disabled people and their specific conditions and mental health problems. 

3. End the practice of restraining, sedating and keeping residents in caged beds, cells or locked rooms. Instead get professionals in to teach alternative options to allow the staff to cope with any challenging behaviours in a professional and respectful manner.

4. Re-launch and re-organise the volunteer programme which was discontinued in 2011.

5. Relocate the residents to smaller care homes or to community-based care so that their living environment, the medical and therapeutic care will be appropriate to their needs.

6. A legal framework needs to be implemented in Greece that sets minimal requirements for any existing place housing disabled people and that promotes de-institutionalisation as well as community-based care. The legislation must ensure and promote human rights for persons with disability according to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities for which Greece is a signatory.



There is a lot of work to do in the institution. And the goals of the petition can only represent it in a very short way. To learn more about what exactly needs to be changed in the institution: 

Read our position paper here!

Κείμενο θέσεων των πρώην εθελοντών

We know that Greece is facing a very hard economical situation right now and we are not seeking to criticise the staff working at the centre who we understand are struggling under very difficult conditions.

Nevertheless we believe that the Greek state has a responsibility to care for those who are living in his custody and provide them with basic human rights!

Update 11-19-2014: Since we have reasons to fear that the Child Care Center in Lechaina as well as other institutions will close their doors for the media and public, we had to add this sentence to the petition: 

We urge that centres like the one in Lechaina should not operate in secret but be open to the community and media.

Update 4-28-2015: After the elections on January 25th Efi Bekou left her place as the responsible for the situation. Now the General Secretary of Welfare has been announced. The new recipient of our petition is Marina Koutsouri.