Welcommon Hostel is an innovative hostel with strong social and green impact. It is located in the center of Athens, at the heart of youth, social and cultural activities, easy to reach with public transportation, 400 meters from Omonoia Square and 900 meters from Syntagma Square, close to the archaeological museum, 3 minutes on foot from the public transport systems’ hubs (Omonoia and Kaniggos sq), in a distance of 10 minutes on foot from Acropolis, Museum of Acropolis, Syntagma sq, the Parliament, Monastiraki flea market, Plaka neighborhood and Athens downtown, at the borders of the Exarchia neighborhood with many youth cafes and cultural activities.
It is the first hostel in Athens run by a Social Cooperative, Anemos Ananeosis / Wind of Renewal established in 2014 for the promotion of social and green economy and innovation, intercultural dialogue, climate action, green transition, sustainable tourism. Two of our flagship projects are, the Welcommon center for housing and empowerment of refugees (9/2016-2/2018) and a follow up, the Welcommon Hostel, from June 2018 until today.
Welcommon Hostel offers accommodation to people of all ages and all the travellers without discrimination. It is a hostel for sustainable tourism, an option for accommodation of social, cultural and environmental active persons and groups during their stay in Athens, as well as a centre for the promotion of intercultural dialogue, social and green innovation, social empowerment and inclusion, job integration of refugees.
Welcommon Hostel opened at the end of June 2018, after a general renovation of the building based on a re-use and green approach aimed at turning it into a youthful, comfortable and creative hostel.
We have received 11 international and European awards and distinguishes for our social and green impact, like:
- SOSCARs 2021 EXTRAORDINARY Hostel Hero 2021 / 1st place at the global level, for our social work during COVID-19 (by the Hostel World network)
- CEB 2021 award, shortlisted in the 5 best social inclusion projects in Europe (by the Development Bank of the Council of Europe),
- European Citizen’s Prize 2018 for our contribution in the promotion of the European values (by the European Parliament),
- SOSCARs 2021 EXTRAORDINARY SUSTAINABLE Hostel 2021, shortlisted in the 5 best sustainable hostels at the global level (by the Hostel World network)
- voted as the best social project in Greece for 2019-2021 in the framework of the social competition organized by the Greek network of the Euro Med “Anna Lindh Foundation”
Welcommon Hostel is part of the LE MAT Network for the promotion of sustainable tourism: special people, places, values. Anemos Ananeosis is a member of the Anna Lindh Foundation for the promotion of the intercultural dialogue, RESCoop.eu (the federation of the European energy cooperatives) as well as of the REVES network of authorities and social enterprises for the promotion of social economy and DIESIS network, the ecosystem of social economy. We have close collaboration with european netoworks like Social EConomy Europe, Rre-use etc.
Welcommon Hostel is also a member of the Hostel World’s network as well as of Greek Youth Hostels Association and Hostelling International, the global networks of hostels that enable travelers to meet people of different cultures, backgrounds and experiences, and provide a rich resource for learning and for building a better, more peaceful world.
Social activities / social impact:
Welcommon Hostel always hosts volunteers from various European – and not only – countries. Since 2016 we have hosted more than 400 volunteers from all over the world, for 2-12 months. Our volunteers run on a daily basis our social activities, such as: language lessons for adults and teenagers, art classes, social events, walking tours etc. Since 2018, and especially during COVID-19 we have hosted in Welcommon Hostel, in safety and dignity – although without a grant or funding project – more than 600 vulnerable, homeless refugees, while more than 8000 refugees, volunteers, tourists, students, Erasmus participated in our inclusive, intercultural and interactive courses, events, activities. We have close collaboration with human rights, environmental and social organizations, networks as well as with communities of refugees and migrants.
Eco-Sustainability / Green hostel
Gradually we turn the Welcommon Hostel into a demonstration building for sustainability, energy efficiency
- we changed all the 2400 lighting to LED – energyefficient systems,
- we have installed 20 solar panels for heating the water used by our clients,
- we managed to reduce the consumption of energy, electricity, oil, and CO2 emissions up to 50-60%
- We are looking to turn the hostel into an almost zero emissions building, in the future, by using hybrid solar panels for heating / cooling of the building and producing electricity for the hostel’ s needs.
We welcome any networking with organisations and institutions, even social investors willing to support and participate in our project
If you know organisations and institutions willing to collaborate with us and even support our efforts, please give us a contact. Although we are working for the social good and green transition, we are excluded from the COVID-19 measures in Greece (as we are not for-a-profit organisation and there is also discrimination against social cooperatives in almost all the financial measures by the government and the regional authorities, although much of the money if EU). As we want to be independent related to housing and empowerment of refugees but also to promoting green and climate action and projects, we created the Welcommon Hostel in order to finance our projects. COVID-19 and the impact on tourism and societies raised obstacles in our effort to self-financing our projects and social / green work. We survived but we need you help.
Please have a look:
www.instagram.com/welcommonhostel
www.instagram.com/welcommonproject
We discussed about the Anemos Ananeosis /Wind of Renewal, the WELCOMMON HOSTEL, our hostel with social and green impact as well as about the Celeste Foundation. We had a very interesting and inspiring exchange of experience and good practices between the two organisations
During COVID-19, we offered in Welcommon Hostel safe accommodation and empowerment courses to many homeless vulnerable refugees and asylum seekers and at the same time we hosted a big number of refugees and volunteers in Welcommon Hostel. Even during COVID-19 we continued on offering the lessons for the empowerment of the participants, in a safe environment, implementing the health regulations.
The vision of our volunteering project is to bring people together from all over the world (380 volunteers from 2016 until today), to enable them to communicate, by contributing with own social and green ideas, social and climate actions and experience, with the highlight of the positive impact that social economy enterprises have on communities, revitalizing neighborhoods, acting for the climate protection, making bridges between communities, social groups, newcomers and local people.
For Anemos Ananeosis / Wind of Renewal accessibility means equal access not only to a building or site but also to social, political, and economic life, it means not only physical access but also access to the same tools, services, organizations and facilities for all, disabled or/and other vulnerable people and non-disabled people.
We try to adapt our offer, the hostel/the building as such and our activities and services, accessible to all people (whether they have a disability or not) without discrimination. The hostel is accessible to disable persons. There is also a special designed room for 3-4 disable persons. The elevators and the rooms for activities as well as our bar and places for intercultural events are all accessible. Our guests are different travelers, including disable persons, from all over the world. We are proud we have hosted between others many individuals and groups of disabled persons as well as activities for disabled persons (for example a group of 50 participants, for an international Erasmus Project, from 19/10-26/10/2019, hosted by IKKAIDO, an innovative European disability sports organisation) and of course many disable individuals as tourists, refugees and participants / students in our intercultural courses (language, painting, photography, music lessons).
Anemos Ananeosis / Wind of Renewal is a partner of the 
We have also installed on the roof of the Welcommon Hostel – without any grant – 20 solar panels for the production of hot water for shower and domestic use. The production of hot water is a major source of energy-consumption and economic duty of accommodation buildings and the ways of producing it most of the time is related to use of fossil fuels, a practice that is environmentally damaging. This is why, faithful to our purpose of creating a sustainable and environmentally fair society, we chose a renewable source of energy to adapt the need of hot water to a carbon-free practice.
Anemos Ananeosis / Wind of Renewal has organised more than 60 conferences, events and seminars on green transition, climate protection, green deal. Under the concept “Discussing and taking the initiative for the green/circular and social economy and the innovation” we have organised a variety of workshops, public events and day workshops with the participation of universities, teachers, social – vocational institutions, social – economy enterprises, social media. The 2 days-seminar “Planning Transition to Energy Efficient Cities- Energy Efficiency on local level” was addressed to more than 250 elected, civil staff, managers and staff of municipalities especially from the departments of programming, energy-climate, urban planning and construction as well as representatives of civil society, unemployed and staff related businesses.
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