Photo © Sarah Booker
We are a group of UK volunteer immigration lawyers who have set up the Refugee Legal Support - Athens (RLS-Athens) project.

Started in April 2017 in response to the refugee crisis, UK-based immigration lawyers travel to Athens to provide pro bono specialist legal support to refugees and Greek lawyers. Following a successful four-month pilot, we have extended the project for a further five-months and are actively seeking follow-on funding to keep the clinic in operation through 2018.

Embedded within the Khora Community Centre, we work alongside Greek legal support volunteers to provide free legal advice to refugees: to prepare refugees for asylum interviews ; to reunite refugees with family members living in other European countries ; and to challenge island restrictions.

How it works:

A. Experienced immigration lawyers travel to Athens to volunteer for a two-week period;

B. Athens-based legal support volunteers pre-screen refugees, taking down details of their case and booking them a legal advice appointment;

C. Volunteer lawyers meet with refugees at Khora Community Centre, or at refugee camps,

D. Where necessary, refugees are sign-posted to other bodies including to the Greek Asylum Office, embassies or for medical assessment .

Since April, thanks to all your donations so far, we have been able to send out volunteer lawyers each week to Athens, where they have been working closely with adult and child refugees on their asylum claims and applications for reunification with family members elsewhere in Europe. So far, over 400 refugees have received free legal advice.

We would not have been able to do this without your support. We have raised £12,500 and now need to raise another £7,500 to continue to pay for local interpreters and volunteers' expenses in Athens.

We are also working to set up a long term project to help those so desperately in need. Thank you again for all your support!