Say Yes

Donations are changing the way we live. Each time we share a part of us (time, objects, money) we willingly enter in a state of belonging to something bigger. Give back to the community and it will come back to you, in ways that are beyond imagination.

In the year 1994, I offered all my belongings to a family, on the first floor of the building I was living at the time. She was a single mother with two wonderful children at the age of 10 & 14. I was moving to a new country and due to an issue with the landlord, it wasn’t possible to refund my prepaid rents.

So, to make a long story short, I invited the family to stay in my apartment for as long as they wanted. The rents had been paid in advance for 3 years. Never crossed my mind, that they were in need of financial support. I needed help with my apartment and my house. So they moved in and I started a new chapter in my life.

We were in frequent communication through letters or phone calls. Actually, we talked twice a year on the phone, but I was receiving one detailed letter for every passing month. How they were doing, the kids, the house, the neighbors and to my surprise I’ve got a list of all the paid bills. Paid by her accompanied by a thank you note for my support.

As I found out later, this mother had lost her job, and by having a safe home for her family, gave her the opportunity to stand on her feet again and create a better life for her children.

Back in Greece and years later – at the beginning of 2014 – I had a severe accident and entered the hospital for a risky surgery. Her older son was the surgeon who saved my life. By giving her an opportunity for a better life, I had a second chance to live, 20 years later. 

Give. Don’t think. Just give. It will come back to you, one way or another.

Be part of the change

Support Social Hackers Academy

Today there are 61,000 refugees stuck in Greece. Due to the economic crisis, the country is one of the least prepared in Europe to deal with this influx of people. Currently, housing, food, water, and other services are paid for in large part by government organizations and NGOs. But very little money is invested in sustainable solutions to the problem like formal education and skills training.

What are they doing?

They provide free education. They transform today’s refugees to tomorrow’s programmers. They act with the passion to be part of the solution. They provide to underprivileged groups with an end-to-end education in software engineering and entrepreneurship, empowering them to find employment and independence.

This is Social Hackers Academy

They care

They are doers

They offer

They need you

By supporting Social Hackers Academy cause you’re helping:

• 70 people in securing a job, with great potential 
• 280 people learning the basics in our Computer Literacy Class
• 84 students participate in our WordPress Class

About Social Hackers Academy

Our train of thought and actions to create opportunities and stability:

We live in Greece, and we’re programmers. Programmers have a problem-solving spirit that eventually works 😉 So, the idea over coping with the refugee crisis, was:

Don’t give them fish, teach them how to fish: eating, drinking, the warmth of a house or clothes will not cease to exist as a need for refugees. They are in a foreign country with no means to integrate, unless someone provides these people with the necessary skills to be able to stand on their feet: we aim to teach them something useful to get a decent job, get a decent salary and buy exactly what they need all by themselves.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tlw6LHMBtJA
Mind the skills gap: There is more demand for high skill labor than there is a supply of workers with those skills. Web developers and computer programmers fall in this category, so we thought there is a way to bridge this gap.

Teach them how to code: No doubt there’s amazing talent in refugee circles (musicians, actors, writers, lawyers, …) so why shouldn’t there be a talent for web developers? All we needed to do is locate them, teach them the software engineering skills and…

Ensure a job position: Programmers and web developers are among the top sought-after jobs by companies worldwide. Recruiters love them, multinationals love them, and a medium-sized Greek company could literally beg for them. We could definitely get jobs for our students if we tried. And we did.

And it worked: a dozen tech companies in Athens are now waiting for our first graduates. This train of thought started as a wild fantasy, but as we started diving in, we realized there were people out there have actually materialized the same thoughts.

There was no reason for us to reinvent the wheel: we came in contact with Hack Your Future, the successful coding school for refugees in Amsterdam, shared our ideas with them and collaborated closely to build our curriculum and get our teachers ready for action. We are now a member of  8 coding schools all across Europe.

How we are doing so far: Our first coding course started in September 2017, with the financial support of local businesses that provided us with private funds, enough to cover the initial running costs. Since then we’ve launched 2 more classes and we’re ready to launch another two in 2.5 months time.

We are not isolated islands.

Together we can do anything!

Why we need your support

We are launching a crowdfunding campaign to ensure the viability of our project for the next year. Reaching our crowdfunding goal will enable us to run 5 coding classes, 20 Computer Literacy Classes, and 6 WordPress Classes. We expect 56 people to work as software developers in companies or as freelancers.

Our aim: 12 months of runway. More specifically:

29.928 Euros + 7.9% Crowdfunding Platform Charges = 32.292 Euros

You can find our exact Financial Projections by clicking here.

In case you don’t feel like donating at the moment you could share our crowdfunding page with your close friends via email or social media. On average, every share that we get now is equal to €18 donated in the future. Help us maximize our reach right now by sharing to the people you trust.

Join Social Hackers Academy

Website: http://socialhackersacademy.org
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/socialhackersacademy/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/socialhackersacademy/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/sochackacademy
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