From May 6 to 13, YMCA Thessaloniki hosted a Visual Arts and Photography Exhibition entitled “Traveling”.

The exhibition was held on the initiative of the Unit for the Integration and Support of Unaccompanied Minors of the Special Secretariat for the Protection of Unaccompanied Minors, of the Ministry of Immigration & Asylum, with the support of the National Agency for Migration and Refugees, in collaboration with the following agencies: Arsis, Synyparxis-Ecumenical Program Refugees, International Organization for Migration and the Laboratory of the Department of Visual & Applied Arts of the School of Fine Arts of the University of Athens.

These were the works of forty-eight (48) unaccompanied minors from different countries of origin (Afghanistan, Syria, Pakistan, Nigeria, Iraq, Sierra Leone, Egypt) in which the children’s wishes, dreams for the future, as well as the experiences that acquired through their journey, starting from the country of origin with the destination of a new life.

The brotherhood of cultures program invited the Ukrainian community to visit the exhibition and do an activity with volunteers on the 10th May. A total of 13 people participated in the event, three of them volunteers. Following a short guided tour of the exhibition, the visitors were invited to participate in the following activity: they had to choose their favorite painting and explain why they liked it, afterwards they were asked to write a message to the author of the art work. Those messages were then exhibited as well. It was very touching because the messages found their way through and were forwarded back to the artist.