Filothei Archives - The Automatic Earth

Automatic Earth in Athens Winter 2022

Dec 032022

December 3, 2022 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 2:41 pm Finance Tagged with: Athens, Automatic Earth, charity industry, Christmas dinner, Filothei, Kivotos, Monastiraki, NGOs 7 Responses »

John Singer Sargent Corfu-Lights and Shadows 1908

A major story in Athens these days concerns a “children’s charity” NGO named “Kivotos tou Kosmou” (World’s Ark), founded by a priest, Antonios -the Greeks still love their priests- which since 1998 has run multiple homes for “vulnerable children and mothers”. Recently, it has come under scrutiny because of widespread financial malfeasance and, wouldn’t you know, “widespread sexual and physical abuse” of the children in their care. The Monastiraki kitchen’s Filothei tells me that she and her late husband used to donate money to this NGO on a regular basis. Imagine how she feels now, along with so many others.

I tell you this because it apparently revives a discussion about NGOs here in Greece. You may remember that in 2015, when I first landed here, at the height of the refugee crisis, there were 51 NGOs reportedly “operating” on the island of Lesbos alone. Their capital came from the Greek government, as well as the EU, and likely the UN. Many of them were handing out lousy and expensive meals, bought by the thousands from companies somewhere in Europe, and paid for with subsidies (they paid $5-10 per meal, the Monastiraki kitchen cost is $1 per meal -maybe $1,50 now- for much better quality- we make sure). And it was a lucrative business. It was “the Charity Industry”. British (ex?) politician David Miliband then earned £425,000-a-year as head of refugee charity International Rescue. For all I know he still does.

They picked Miliband because of his ties to -political- funding. Where that funding then went, if it actually helped people, was a secondary matter. To be an NGO, you must comply with, in the Greek case, a long set of EU rules. And then when you do, you can get a lot of money -or at least in 2015 you could. That money didn’t go where it was needed, it went to the NGO industry. And the politicians could say: see, we spent so much money on the poor, you can’t blame us if anything goes wrong!

Somehow this whole thing has reached the Monastiraki kitchen to the extent that Filothei would like me to explain. As she herself wrote on the kitchen’s Facebook page the other day (Google translation) :

The Monastiraki social kitchen, we are a group, “big family” of intrepid people with a common goal and abundance of emotions. Setting tables for sharing moments and feeding. WE DON’T ACCEPT CASH. We are not an NGO. We have no sponsors. We are only accepting items that can fit in the pot of all of us or fruit and candy all shared on the same day. We don’t store, we don’t stock food, we do not throw food. Even ripe fruit becomes jams for crepes. Whatever are SOS needs that we cannot meet, we ask for your help, always in kind.

With organized and proper management of food, we always have it in abundance and no needy person leaves complaining. Thank you for your prompt response, caring, support and Humanity. This pot is filled by all of us and is distributed fairly to all. With a smile and appetite for lessons in the difficult city, we are waiting for you in our big family. We keep what unites us and throw away what divides us. Solidarity, respect, and Love are our weapons.

This comes after she tells me people ask how much we ourselves make from each cooking, and people saying: I would like to work for your kitchen, how much do you pay? In reality, the people who prepare the food are also the people who use their own money -of which most have little- to buy what is needed to feed 500 homeless per cooking. And in the background as a safety net, for large expenses and unexpected costs, there is the Automatic Earth and its wonderful readers.

People’s perception, and you can’t blame them for it, is that we make money off of feeding the poorest. As I said, charity has become an industry. NGOs are money makers. And that’s how people see them. That’s why we never wanted to be an NGO. Sure, that means donations to us are not tax-deductible, and that undoubtedly costs us a lot of money, but the cost to our integrity of complying with bureaucrats is just too high. We pave our own path.

As for the kitchen’s operations right now, we’ve made sure there’s still a bit of money left from your donations in summer, just in case. From time to time I even tell Filothei et al that they can keep their money and put it in a jar or an envelope for hard(er) times. Because we still have some funds, we made sure. They refuse to accept any cash, by the way, I have to personally go to the supermarket to purchase the checks that they then use to buy the staple foods, pasta, rice, tomato cans and -paste. Can’t give them cash, can’t transfer the money.

But winter hasn’t started yet, and that will be the big challenge. Supermarket prices just keep on rising, but the big one will be the power and energy bills. Which for some people will be 3x what they were last year. We face 3 months of trouble. How many people will be unable to pay their bills? How many will have to cut down on food just to be able to stay in their homes? How may will end up in the streets? How cold will it get? We don’t know. But we do have to try and prepare. For more meals, more cooking, more caring.

And never underestimate the shame, the hesitancy that people feel when they must admit they can not feed themselves, or worse, their families. People all over the world are too proud for that, and Greeks are certainly no exception.

Thank you so much for your ongoing support. And we’ll make sure our clients have a great Christmas dinner. I’d pay for it myself if needed, but something tells me the Monastiraki kitchen family will beat me to it.

My usual schtick repeated:

Also, I should never forget the local people who support the kitchen. There is a baker who sends over enough bread for everyone. Another baker sends over tons of fantastic sweets, luxurious pies etc., every week (€100 each time?). They wish to remain anonymous. And there are many like them. The store where we get the water sends over food for vegetarians, to name one example. Plus, of course, most vegetables come from Filothei’s organic garden (how big does a garden have to be before you call it a farm?!). It’s a brilliant operation, and I’m proud to be part of it.

We are a lucky kitchen. Because of all these people, and because of you. Thank you. I’ll end with the usual play:

Most of you will know the drill of this by now: any Paypal donations ending in $0.99 or $0.37 go straight to the Monastiraki kitchen, while other donations go to the Automatic Earth -which also badly needs them. (Note: a lot of Automatic Earth donations also end up at the kitchen).

I dislike few things more than asking people for money, even though the Automatic Earth now runs primarily on donations, and there’s some sweet justice in that as well, in depending on people’s appreciation of what we do, instead of ad revenues.

But I cannot do this on my own right now. The Monastiraki kitchen will realistically need about €1,500 per month (not all from my readers). I don’t have that to spare. So I’m calling on you. Unashamedly, because I know there is no reason to be ashamed of the cause.

I love all you people, and I’m sorry I can’t thank you all individually who have supported -and still do- the Monastiraki kitchen and the Automatic Earth all this time, and I ask you to keep on doing just that. The details for donations on Paypal and Patreon, for both causes, are in the top of the two sidebars of this site. Could not be much easier. If you’d rather send a check, go to our Store and Donations page. Bitcoin: 1HYLLUR2JFs24X1zTS4XbNJidGo2XNHiTT.

Love you. Thank you. This kitchen would not exist without you, these people would not get fed.

Monastiraki Square

We try to run the Automatic Earth on donations. Since ad revenue has collapsed, you are now not just a reader, but an integral part of the process that builds this site. Thank you for your support.

Support the Automatic Earth in virustime with Paypal, Bitcoin and Patreon.

Automatic Earth in Athens Christmas 2020

Dec 172020

December 17, 2020 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 6:56 pm Finance Tagged with: Athens, charity, Christmas, Filothei, homeless, lockdown, Paypal, police, Santa, social kitchen 4 Responses »

Filothei Skitzi Human puzzle on COVID19 days 2020

I know, I know, I’ve been largely silent about most “usual suspect topics” lately, other than in the Debt Rattles, but I must admit, those topics have been draining me, along with the full lockdown here in Greece. I understand why politicians want to do lockdowns, but I also understand why they shouldn’t.

Lockdowns drain life out of societies and communities, and there’s no guarantee that this life will ever come back. As I wrote earlier today, when we wake back up, the world will have changed beyond recognition. And we cannot NOT ask if that is worth the price we pay.

A vaccine is hurriedly being promoted and rolled out that is drowning in question marks, while skipping much of what is considered normal in vaccine development. As things like vitamin D, HCQ and ivermectin are cast in a media cloud of doubt, though there are no such questions about them. Vaccine: no time for research. Everything else: years more research needed.

As for the other main topic in recent months, the US elections, all I see is people calling each other traitors and seditionists planning coups, and that has gone too far now. Let the legal process play out and the dice roll, and stop the clickbaiting propaganda. People are getting hurt.

In that light, I’d much prefer to write about better and happier things, and the Monastiraki kitchen in Athens is certainly one of those. It’s Christmas time, a time you’re supposed to care about, and for, people. I told you I’d have an update, and here it is. I think I’ll let the photos do most of the talking this time.

First of all, things haven’t gotten any easier out there. The lockdown, the police and the homeless are a strange combination. 100 people gathering to wait for a meal is no longer acceptable. So now the team have to go look for many of them. That takes time, because some are quite far away, but at least they know where to find most. These are crazy days, and everyone’s just simply trying their best.

I told you about the Greek athletes’ Love Van initiative last time, and they delivered: tons of winter coats and blankets and sleeping bags and shoes. It was plain to see that the police were standing by wondering what their orders were, but decided that denying people a warm coat was not in their job prescription. It was a wonderful little mess and anarchy for the hour it lasted, though.

But there is always the lingering fear that we, or everyone, might get arrested, or fined €300 each. There are still plenty regular kitchen volunteers who don’t come in because of that fear. They simply don’t have that kind of money.

In reaction to my November 20 article Automatic Earth in Athens November 2020, our very very generous readers donated some €3,000. That is inevitably an estimate because of the way Paypal donations work. I used to take the approximate amount in US dollars, and presume those were euros. But that was when the exchange rate was $1.10 or lower. Today, it’s $1.22.

And that’s not all. Paypal takes a percentage of every donation (2-4%?!), and then more when the dollars are converted to euros (their rate is over $1.26 right now). We could apply for charity status, but then we would have to 1) set up a separate account for the kitchen and 2) be registered as a charity in either the US or EU, which requires a ton of paperwork, rules, regulations, obligations.

We’re not going to do that, for much of the same reasons we won’t register the kitchen as an NGO. We want to be independent. Even if that costs some money. I’ll continue to round off everything in favor of the kitchen, and pay the difference myself, as long as it is somewhat reasonable.

On to happier tidings. The private space I told you about where the cooking takes place now is a small stone yard without a roof.

And since it rains in winter sometimes, we decided to buy one of those big umbrellas you see outside bars and restaurants, it seems the only way to get some shelter while cooking. They’re €200. I said we’ll use €100 from the donations, and I’ll pay the other half. That way we involve all of you to an extent, in day-to-day operations. Maybe we’ll even need two, but we’ll tackle that as the time comes.

Also, I purchased our first new €1,000 batch of supermarket checks (50x€20) on Tuesday, paid for with your fresh donations (Filothei and I are both painfully camera-shy, but the Acropolis in the background more than makes up for that ;-):

And Filothei did a big shopping trip with the checks yesterday:

What I didn’t know last time is that the kitchen still has a pretty solid amount of staples in storage, oil, pasta, tomato paste etc. That takes away some of the pressure, and it will be needed.

And then of course, wouldn’t you know, the crew decided they’re going to add a second day every week to cook. Purely led by increased demand and need. Not a huge surprise, that need is everywhere, just look at US and UK foodbanks. But we will still need to find a way to fund it. Nudge nudge wink wink. Someone like Filothei just says: we will do what must be done, whereas I then say: and how are we going to do that? You know, at €240 per meal? You just doubled the costs…

And still I’m pretty sure we indeed will make it happen, just because we have to. We must find a way, and therefore we will, with your help. And a bit of good cheer goes a long way:

Those Santa hats are brilliant, they change the entire mood and picture. As do these facemasks for the homeless, made by girls who themselves are too “vulnerable” healthwise to come in, but still want to contribute. I love those things:

Same goes for the winterhats (can you say “tuque”?)

As the cherry on the pie, and because everyone deserves a real Christmas, especially if they live on the streets, and very especially in a lockdown, we’re going to hand all our clients a big package of sweets for the festive season.

And then if you’ll allow me, I’ll repeat my last paragraph of the November 20 article, With one main difference: twice the meals will mean twice the costs, by and large. But hey, it’s Christmas. The time when miracles come true!

Sure, I’m a little apprehensive about January and February, with the Christmas hope and spirit gone, and temperatures dipping, but I also know that 4 days from now, the days will start getting longer again in our hemisphere.

Most of you will know the drill of this by now: any Paypal donations ending in $0.99 or $0.37 go straight to the Monastiraki kitchen, while other donations go to the Automatic Earth -which also badly needs them, especially for Christmas-. (Note: a lot of Automatic Earth donations also went to the kitchen the past month).

But I cannot do this on my own right now. To get through the winter in one piece, the Monastiraki kitchen will realistically need about €1,500-2,000 per month. I don’t have that to spare. So I’m calling on you. Unashamedly, because I know there is no reason to be ashamed of the cause.

Love you. Thank you. This kitchen would not exist without you, these people would not get fed.

We try to run the Automatic Earth on donations. Since ad revenue has collapsed, you are now not just a reader, but an integral part of the process that builds this site.

Click at the top of the sidebars for Paypal and Patreon donations. Thank you for your support.

Support the Automatic Earth in virustime, election time, all the time. Click at the top of the sidebars to donate with Paypal and Patreon.

Automatic Earth in Athens November 2020

Nov 202020

November 20, 2020 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 8:14 pm Finance Tagged with: Filothei, Greece, homeless, Monastiraki, social kitchen, The Automatic Earth 6 Responses »

Georgia O’Keeffe Red poppy No. VI 1928

High time for another update about our support for what is now called the “Self-managed Social Kitchen Monastiraki” here in Athens (Athina). It’s again been a while, because for a long time so many things were uncertain and up in the air. I guess that is inevitable when the entire world lives through insecure times, and the homeless as always are more affected by such things than anyone else.

For the first half of the year, I wasn’t even here, I spent the first lockdown period in Holland, because I thought Greece would be more affected than it, but I was very wrong. Greece had it down then. It’s only now, 3-4 months after they opened their borders to tourism again, that things go wrong.

But the country needs revenue from tourism, it cannot keep its borders closed forever. There’s a lesson in there somewhere about what I wrote earlier, that “after 10 months, we can’t keep treating COVID as the only problem in town. That’s myopic. We need a bigger picture”.

Athens went into another full lockdown recently, and the city is devoid of life. Which will kill off another large part of the “mom-and-pop” businesses that make it function and kept it vibrant. There’s exactly two Starbucks in Athens, to name an example, one McDonald’s and one KFC, and I think they should be very proud of that. Monoculture kills life itself, both in farming and in city streets.

And countless people working in the “mom-and-pop” businesses, and in the tourist- and hospitality industries, no longer have jobs. They get some financial support, but not enough to pay all their bills. So what do they do? They go see each other indoors, where the infection risk is higher.

Still, here we are. And we have to deal with it. Back in March, the Monastiraki kitchen did that too. A lockdown doesn’t make the homeless any less hungry or needy, it makes them more so. And the boys and girls responded to that under ever more difficult circumstances. When cooking in the street was no longer viable, they devised a way to cook in a private space nearby and ride out the food to Monastiraki Square, on a cart.

Problem with that is it costs a lot more time and money, because every meal has to be individually packaged, and you now in COVID time need sanitizer and gloves and tons of bags, and facemasks. I bought a whole bunch of N95 masks for everyone a few weeks ago, because there are real risks when working close together, and then handing out the meals to the clients. I want to keep these people as safe as possible.

Then this summer, there was another issue. The kitchen had returned to cooking on the square, but in early August was told by municipal police that there were anonymous complaints about them “taking up public space”, and they couldn’t come back. All attempts since to find out what exactly was going on have landed nowhere. At one point some official promised he would come with a solution, only to never be heard from again.

And so, certainly with the new lockdown in place, the decision was made to keep cooking in the private place, and rolling out the food to the square. People are good at adapting. But there remains an underlying threat of the kitchen volunteers being arrested, a threat that was actually made in early August. For feeding people in need. Some world.

And this is a good moment to introduce Filothei, the lady and girl who is the driving force behind the kitchen now. Which she will deny, because it’s all about everyone else, not her, and because she insists she’s only 17. I began to wonder about the kitchen’s finances when I got back to Athens in June 2020, I thought they’d badly need more of the Automatic Earth funds, but they were in no hurry.

Meet Filothei 😉

Digging further, I realized we only provided some 10-15% of the funding. So where did the rest come from? It took some questioning, but sure enough, a large part of the answer is: from Filothei herself. And while that is supersweet, it also makes for a vulnerable situation. And then, of course, she got hurt a month ago when a piece of a mirror fell into (yes, into) her arm and she hasn’t been able to work her job as a physiotherapist for handicapped people since.

By the way, Filothei also has a large organic garden, which provides most of the vegetables for most of the year. For 200 meals every week! Automatic Earth readers’ donations are typically used to buy the staples, pasta, olive oil, canned tomatoes etc.

We decided to run a trial on November 16, when Filothei went to the supermarket with some of the €1,000 in coupons she still had left from what I bought in early July(!), without using anything still in stock, to see the cost for one run of 200 meals, and it showed a total of €242 (in current exchange rates, close to $300 US). While “my” coupons have paid for some €20 per week. We were both surprised at the numbers.

And no, €242 for 200 meals is not much, it’s less than €1.15 per person. While the NGO’s and charities funded by governments and the EU claim costs of €5-€10 per meal. But you still have to have the €242 every week. And it shouldn’t come from one sweetheart of a girl, or from me, or any other individual person. That’s not how you run a social kitchen operation long term.

Moreover, because of the COVID situation, other people who used to provide some funds, no longer can, because out of 30 of them “affiliated” with the kitchen, only 3 now still have jobs. When it rains, it pours.

So on November 16 we did the shopping trial, and the next day I went along for the whole cooking process, about 4 hours. November 17 is the day Greece commemorates its then military junta violently putting down a student protest at the Polytechnic university compound in 1973, and the government tightened its lockdown measures even more, fearing protests, which meant many who usually help in the kitchen were afraid to come in, fearing a €300 fine.

As did I, but hey, hard as it is to understand the details of the lockdown measures when you don’t speak the language, if others take the risk, who am I not to? There was police in full riot gear everywhere, and at the end of the day, around 7.30 pm, we had meals left. That never happens. Some of the guys later went into side streets, where the homeless were hiding from the police, and handed out dozens more meals.

But of course things ain’t all bad. Filothei told me yesterday about a group of people, organized in the “Love Van”, which is an organization made up of Greek athletes, that reached out to her to ask what she needs, and now promised to bring 160 winter coats and 160 sleeping bags next week to the kitchen. That’s such a grand gesture. Coat: $100 a piece, sleeping bag $100 a piece?!

Not everything is bad. And no matter how bad it gets, we will somehow make it through this. Hey, the shortest day of the year is only one month away, and after that things can only get better. But you already know what I’m going to say next: please help me, help us, help the people that need your help most.

Put the Automatic Earth, and the Monastiraki kitchen, in your Christmas donations list in 2020, and contribute to a real effort to help real people beset by real problems. These are mostly not people with drug- or alcohol problems, they are people who lost their jobs or businesses and their homes, through no fault of their own. That was true when I first got here in Spring 2015, and it’s even more so now, because COVID has killed off so many ways to carve out at least a minimum existence.

Most of you will know the drill of this by now: any donations ending in $0.99 or $0.37 go straight to the Monastiraki kitchen, while other donations go to the Automatic Earth -which also badly needs them, especially for Christmas-.

But I cannot do this on my own right now. To get through the winter in one piece, the Monastiraki kitchen will realistically need about €1,000 per month. I don’t have that to spare. So I’m calling on you. In earlier times, 2016-2017, we had way more than that with Konstantinos, but both Filothei and I decided a few years back, independently from each other, that we didn’t want to work with him anymore.

So let’s see where we can get today, shall we? I want to write the perfect article with the perfect plea, but there is of course no such thing. Therefore, I will be back in a few weeks time with a reminder -and updates-, hoping that y’all have gotten the message.

I love all you people so much, and I’m sorry I can’t thank you all individually who have supported -and still do- the Monastiraki kitchen and the Automatic Earth all this time, and I ask you to keep on doing just that. The details for donations on Paypal and Patreon, for both causes, are in the top of the two sidebars of this site. Could not be much easier.

Love you. Thank you.

We try to run the Automatic Earth on donations. Since ad revenue has collapsed, you are now not just a reader, but an integral part of the process that builds this site.

Click at the top of the sidebars for Paypal and Patreon donations. Thank you for your support.

Turns out, the same Filothei is quite the photographer too:

Filothei Photography