Firstly could you tell us a little bit about yourself and what brought you to Elpida Home?
What aspects of your role at Elpida Home do you enjoy the most?

My name is Alireza Lotfi. I was born on 17.01.2001 (21 years old) in Iran and my mother tongue is Persian (Farsi). I moved to Greece as a political refugee at the beginning of 2019. At the end of 2019, after many efforts to leave Greece, I decided to stay and started to learn Greek on my own. I have always had a great relationship with languages and love learning new ones. I am a quick learner hence starting to learn Greek by myself. Now I am able to speak Persian (Farsi), Dari, Greek and English. Before that, I was working as a volunteer and helping refugees on my own because I love helping people, especially refugees since they need help in these times, especially from a language perspective.

I did not have any professional experience but Elpida Home trusted me and let me prove myself. I also believe that I gave them a green light to trust me and after my interview and exams, I started my first professional role at Elpida Home. I work as an interpreter and cultural mediator and have been working with Elpida Home since December 2021.

One of the reasons for joining Elpida Home was after seeing how the team works, especially when working together. Elpida Home allows you to think, lets you be free to offer opinions and ideas, to find solutions and they give you the freedom to make decisions yourself. They also provide a great atmosphere and environment to share your ideas and solutions to problems. They willingly invite these and respect the ideas you bring.

I love Elpida Home because of the respect they give you and because it is a real team. They also do not work for publicity and the newspapers, they simply have a goal to help as much as they can and look at all the issues of the refugees and decide what is best for them. Elpida Home is a big family, even if the team is fairly small. I really love it and know that if I leave one day, I will miss the big family. We are friends, family and a team all in one.