A GRACEaid event in London

Hi everybody! We’re thrilled to introduce GRACEaid, another of the Giveth DApp’s beta users, as part of an ongoing series that celebrates the projects and people helping us Build the Future of Giving.

In 2015, as Syrians fleeing a war at home were pouring into Greece on boats and flimsy rafts, Claire Papazidis and her husband Andreas, a Greek native based in the UK, started GRACEaid. Their goal was to help provide decent clothing to displaced Syrians in Greece’s teeming refugee camps.

In the nearly four years since then, they and other GRACEaid volunteers have managed to ship two 40-foot containers and over 1,000 banana boxes filled primarily with clothing to camps in Greece as well as Syria, France, Kosovo, and Serbia. As the organization has matured, it’s taken over the operations of other nonprofits, including one that caters to young, financially-challenged parents in London. To date, no one has ever been paid for the labor they’ve put into GRACEaid, and its funding is completely donation-based.

In 2017, the organization began receiving donations of clothing and other miscellaneous goods at a small London storefront. The best items go to the camps because, as Andreas says, the point is not only to clothe people but also to provide them with a small measure of psychological comfort. Sending ragged old garments accomplishes the first goal but not the second. Clothes of lower quality are sold at the shop or recycled if they’re too worn out to resell. Either way, GRACEaid makes a little bit of money to help cover shipping costs.

Though Andreas has been involved in the blockchain space since 2011, cryptocurrency only became a part of GRACEaid’s operations when it began running a Campaign on our DApp. He believes the tool is a logical fit for the informal aid sector, in which coordination between organizations is already largely decentralized. For example, if an aid organization in Greece requests a container of socks or some money to pay rent on a warehouse, groups like GRACEaid take it upon themselves to deliver. In Andreas’s experience, this informality helps organizations get around red tape, so he’s enthusiastic about using our platform to help donors support GRACEaid in a similarly dispersed yet direct way.

So far, GRACEaid is accepting donations through Giveth to cover the cost of acquiring and shipping clothes, to cover the cost of maintaining GRACEaid’s van, to forward directly to the Lesvos-based NGO Attika, and to train and license resettled Syrians to work in London’s restaurant and catering sector. (You can donate via the hyperlinked pages!) The group also aims to get behind even more projects. They’re already taking steps towards hosting a bulk organic vegetable vendor, English classes, and an after-school music program in the commercial space that they’ve rented.

At Giveth, we aim to provide Makers with tools to collect donations directly from people who recognize the importance of their efforts, the Givers. We feel lucky to have GRACEaid as a user and proud to help Givers support their ongoing efforts.

Until next time,

Giveth

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The Giveth DAC, the team of people working on the DApp and many other Galaxy projects, is funded through the DApp. We depend on Givers like you: individuals who want to help us to make the World a Better Place. If our mission speaks to you, go to donate.giveth.io or contact any of the Unicorns on Riot, and tell us how you’d like to contribute. ❤

To learn more about GRACEaid, visit their site: graceaid.org.uk

Talk to GRACEaid about their Campaign here: riot.im/app/#/room/#giveth-communities:matrix.org

Donate to GRACEaid’s Campaign: https://beta.giveth.io/campaigns/5c4794dd8a6a785b61462b0f

To see more beta users’ DACs and Campaigns, visit: beta.giveth.io

Interested in joining Giveth? Talk to us on Riot about how you can help!