Lighthouse Relief

The men's FIFA World Cup is just four weeks away and Lighthouse Relief is proud to announce that we’re bringing our very own team to Athens’ version of the global football tournament: Kypseli Mundial!

For a decade, football has been at the heart of our mental health and psychosocial support using sport for development methodologies. Working with children and young people across mainland refugee camps, including the isolated Ritsona Camp, we have created spaces for wellbeing, resilience, confidence-building, and community.

Kypseli Mundial is a vibrant festival of football and music, now in its third year - although its origins date back to 2008, when the Union of Africans in Greece organised the African Cup of Greece.

The majority of the twenty teams in this year’s Kypseli Mundial represent African migrant communities. Plus, the tournament includes a growing women’s competition.

Most of the Lighthouse Relief FC players are residents of Ritsona Refugee Camp, for whom our football sessions are a vital opportunity to briefly escape the stifling conditions within the camp. The skill, teamwork, athleticism and enthusiasm they bring to our sessions every week will be brought to a new stage at Kypseli Mundial.

We have been drawn in Group C, with our first qualifying matches kicking off this weekend. We are very hopeful to see our team reach the finals on May 23-24. Stay tuned for updates next week!

At Lighthouse Relief, we bear witness to increasingly harsh circumstances for people seeking refuge in Greece. One of our core commitments is to raise awareness and advocate for the respect of international protections and dignified conditions for people as they seek safety and rebuild their lives.

The Lighthouse Relief blog is a space where individual expression becomes part of a collective voice. We welcome stories, informative articles, photo journals, artwork, and reflections that speak to lived realities, solidarity, and positive change.

Writing for our blog means contributing to advocacy, amplifying perspectives that are often overlooked, and connecting your voice to a wider community, all while you build your own portfolio.

We invite contributions that engage with the realities of displacement and humanitarian response—from personal experiences and frontline reflections to thoughtful analyses of policy, protection gaps, and the broader social and political landscape.

However you choose to express your perspective, you help deepen understanding of complex systems and spark meaningful dialogue that can shift the migration narrative toward equity and dignified representations.

You can submit your article in any language. We encourage you to include a secondary English translation if possible.

Explore our blog, view submission guidelines, and submit your article via the link in our bio or go to: www.lighthouserelief.org/advocacy

Read, create, share—and be part of the collective voices of Lighthouse Relief. 💛

Meet The Team: before they became our team!

We’re so excited to celebrate the launch of our TikTok and we just had to jump on this trend.

From tiny humans to a team driven by purpose — to provide welcoming and dignified support for people seeking refuge as they rebuild their lives in safety 💙💛

We are building our TikTok to continue raising awareness of the realities for refugees and asylum seekers in Greece, and to share stories from the community and your impact through our programming.

Join our community of support and help us increase our reach by following us on TikTok:

Same name, same mission — .relief