Vasileos Irakleiou 14
546 25 THESSALONIKI
Greece
- Youth and education
InfinityGreece is a Social Enterprise that was established on 2014 as a non-formal students group. Our organisation is a leading entrepreneurship on Youth Empowerment in Digital Media with a variety of outdoor and indoor activities.
Our volunteer program is about developing soft and hard skills in Digital Media. This process is spitted in 3 parts: Content creation for a Media portal, (WebRadio, Blogging, Photography and WebTv), Management (Marketing, Human Resource, Project and Event management) and Technology (Web development and Web design). Since 2014 more than 450 young people volunteered on Infinity Greece. Each Content group and project operates with the supervision and assistance of an experienced volunteer youth worker, whose role is mentoring and supporting. Each mentor has optioned both theoretical and technical knowledge of the subject he is working on.
Our educational program includes series of workshops open to the public, trainings for our volunteers, workshops , the online educational platform Academy http://academy.infinitygreece.com/ and granted on “openschoolsthess” https://www.openschoolsthess.gr/ project from the SNF (Stavros Niarchos Fundation) and Municipality of Thessaloniki, for after school activities in primary schools.
In addition we do outdoor activities such as treasure hunting, “My Bike Rocks” biking through the city and “pick a smile - action about international day of happiness" https://infinitygreece.com/smile/ founded from the participatory youth budget of the Thessaloniki Youth Council.
http://www.kedith.gr/en/youthparticipatory-budget/
Aim of our activities is to make young people active citizens, that's why we organize events and festivals in a way to leave our mark in the city. In total we account more than 54 actions, events, parties, workshops and festivals with total attendance over 16000 people.
Our vision is to make young people more creative, give them the opportunity to experiment and improve their soft and hard skills in a safe environment provided from the organisation.
We have experienced youth leaders, youth workers and mentors able to support young people and motivate them. Key persons involved in Erasmus+ projects are young leaders developed their experience abroad. This has not only given them strong educational basis but has also taught them how to communicate with people coming from different cultural and social backgrounds. Their knowledge spreads on various fields, based on non-formal education techniques and working with young people. Our staff expertise is on Digital & Social Media, Content Creation, Event & Project management, young people inclusion and intercultural exchange.
The key staff involved have been part of all the previous activities of the association.
• Ioannis Charchantis (Founder, Trainer) BSc on Informatics and Management, Trainer at Summer Camp and Sports & Culture facility, Content Creator and Video Producer, Music Theory Teacher.
Is the legal representative and founder of InfinityGreece. He is studying Informatics and Administration at the University of Macedonia and is a graduate of the New Conservatory of Thessaloniki, where he was also working as a music theory teacher.
In addition, he continues to undertake projects related to digital media and advertising, or education (inside or outside InfinityGreece).
He has been involved in children camps since 2005, where he first came into contact with European Program Participants (EVS and Youth Exchanges). In recent years, as an employee, he has worked with EVS participants on and off the campus many times. He has participated as a student in the Comenius program and as an adult in Erasmus + and AIESEC exchange and training programs.
• Dimitrios Papadopoulos (Marketing Director) Marketing and Human Resource Mentor, Project Manager at Business Mentality, Cooparator of Europe Direct Halkidiki.
Is a member of the InfinityGreece management team. Is is a student of Balkan, Slavic & Eastern Studies in the Department of Economics and International Business at the University of Macedonia and has proficiency in foreign languages such as English, French and Russian at basic communication level.
Has participated in youth exchange (EU) programs as well as training seminars (TC) on the facilitation of the European ERASMUS+ Programs. He has been a direct partner at the EU Direct Europe Halkidiki, as well as a project manager at BUSINESS MENTALITY. At the same time, he has been in charge of youth exchange programs organized by BUSINESS MENTALITY. He has worked with EVS participants providing advice and support during their volunteer work. He is actively involved in digital media and communication with new people.
• Vasiliki Tsiakiridou (Creative Director) Digital Marketer, Content Creator, BSc on Balkan, Slavic Eastern Studies in the Department of Economics and International Business at the University of Macedonia.She is a co-partner of the InfinityGreece social enterprise and has proficiency in foreign languages such as English and Bulgarian. She has been a volunteer at InfinityGreece for the last 3 years and participated in training seminars (TC) on the facilitation of the European ERASMUS+ Programs. As part of her internship, she worked in TIF-HELEXPO and was a member of the organizing team of the 82nd Thessaloniki International Fair. Currently, she is involved in Digital Marketing and Content Creation, for business and mentoring purposes.
• Aleksandros Nanaj (Project Coordinator) Youth worker, Economist, experienced on international programs, Orator on intercultural project in primary school in Poland, cofacilitator on organisations trainings.
Born in Albania and at the age of 2 immigrated with his family in Greece. He is responsible for communicating with international partners, especially the Erasmus + programs and coordinating the projects.
Supports, informs and prepares the participants of the programs in which Infinity Greece participates as well as being the rapporteur and coordinator of the programs of the organization. He is a graduate economist with master on Energy Finance.
He has participated in several Erasmus + projects and is an active youth worker supporting organizations abroad and in Greece.
Aim of our activities is to make young people active citizens, that's why we organize events and festivals in a way to leave our mark in the city. In total we account more than 56 actions, events, parties, workshops and festivals with total attendance over 21000 people.
Our vision is to make young people more creative, give them the opportunity to experiment and improve their soft and hard skills in a safe environment provided from the organisation.
Since the establishment of InfinityGreece more than 500 young people have been part of the volunteering program. All of them taking part through open calls, bringing something new in the organization and getting the opportunity to broaden their knowledge and get out of their safe zone. In the same way the participants of the projects will be a mixture of experienced youth workers and young people with fewer opportunities from Thessalonikis region, though open call on our pages (https://www.facebook.com/InfinityGreece/ and http://infinitygreece.com ). Depending on the needs of each project we share our call with our national partners as well as the National (Erasmus+, Education) agencies. Selection is based on participants profile, motivation and willingness to get involved and contribute to activities, taking in to consideration their background and the opportunities that possible had. Furthermore in each project we run we keep a genre balance, selecting the same number of participants from both genres.
For each project we create a closed Facebook Group for direct communication among participants and to ensure that each one of them is informed for related to the project subjects.
For sending project in addition we host a preparatory face to face meeting with our participants, giving them the first idea for the project and a guideline. We select experienced leader, who is able to support other participants and take action if need be. In addition we assist the group in task related actions and material preparation. We suggest the best way to travel and assist with travel related and practical tips. For safety reasons all participants make European Health insurance card. Participants will be able to contact our team members via social media before, during and after the project for support and assistance. During the project we are in close communication with our partners and ready to assist and provide what is needed to easy the project and ensure the quality of it. After the project we ask the participants to give as a copy of any available digital material (photography, video) and write a short summary of the project. We post them on our website and on our social media (more than 8000 likes on facebook and more than 3000 followers on instagram). Lastly we invite the participants to an open to public day to present the project their participated, thereby inspire newcomers and spread the knowledge they gained. In addition we are always ready to assist the participants on the follow up activities they choose to do, from a street activity to festival, they name it.
When it comes to training courses and seminars, the tools and methods developed during the project are taken into consideration as part of the organisation for future use and uploaded on our educational platform Academy http://academy.infinitygreece.com/ where our members and volunteers have easily access.
In general InfinityGreece is active on fields of Digital and Social Media, Youth Empowerment and inclusion, hosting actions for schooling, social awareness, racism, young participation in social life.
InfinityGreece training program includes "Training Weekend", a two-day event dedicated to the training of participants. The program aims to integrate new members into the InfinityGreece team, gain technical and theoretical knowledge in the wide range of Digital Media, manage and utilize human resources and improve internal communication, giving impetus to the development of new ideas. During the program sessions are held to cultivate team spirit and partnership with digital media workshops on both the content and the technical needs of each module.
As part of our ongoing training of volunteers we offer “TeamWork in Digital Media ”, a series of seminars / workshops exclusively for volunteers, an 8-week course where, through innovative and interactive seminars, they acquire soft and hard skills, making greater progress, either in Human Resources Management or in Content Creation and Marketing. Seminar lecturers are experts in their field with experience in either non-formal learning or seminar education.
In the summer of 2019, we held the 1st Summer Training of InfinityGreece in our offices, focusing on developing collaborative skills within the organization's teams and co-creating the action plan for the new year with volunteers. The program lasted 5 days and in addition to the members of the organization, Ioannis Charchandis and Alexandros Nanaj, co-facilitators were experienced trainers and youth workers from teams and organizations collaborate.
We participated as trainers in the “YouthWin! Youth workers improving youth work now ”of KEDITH (Municipality Enterprise of Thessaloniki) where for two days we trained Greeks and Swedes on video production.
During the same period we hosted 2 study visits of Erasmus+ youth trainings in our offices as part of the actions "ERASMUS + Capacity Building" and "Using Social Entrepreneurship in Erasmus + - USEE +", where we informed them about social entrepreneurship, our social impact among young people in Thessaloniki, the local community, and the empowerment we offer to digital media.