In this workshop, participants learn how to make soap and cosmetics for their own personal use and with the long term aim of generating income.
The products (solid soap and hand creams) are all handmade from natural materials such as beeswax and olive oil.
The workshop cultivates technical and artistic skills and participants interact and express themselves through creative engagement.

Kyclos has been supported by the cosmetics and detergents Greek producer, cleanway.gr,  who has been providing materials and expertise on how to make soap. Kyclos vision is to set up a small social business for producing and selling soap.

We learn how to cook for ourselves and for the community.

The request for this workshop first came from a group of unaccompanied minors and young adult refugee boys. They lived away from their families and didn’t know how to cook, therefore gaining that knowledge was essential for their survival and better quality of life.

At the same time the workshop served and continues to serve an equally important need: to overcome their loneliness. Food is a way of socializing and personal exchange not only with friends but also with the other community members. Interacting with other people and other cultures allows to create a larger network of relationships and thus to feel more empowered and autonomous.

Through cooking lessons, participants remember their past, connect with their new present and shape their future. Thus, the basic essence of integration is achieved.

The workshop emerged as a need of a group of young people (boys and girls) aged 15-25 who wanted to build skills that are useful in daily life. The group also thought of sewing as an art that could potentially help in their professional development and that also covers a need for expression of creativity.

The workshop includes lessons for sewing, embroidery, jewelry and macrame. The lessons are done by Greeks and refugees. Different styles and cultural elements are interconnected and shown in the final creations, which are useful and decorative objects (dolls, bags, air-stoppers, door-stop, bracelets).

The workshop develops technical skills and provides a fertile ground for interaction, so that participants can express themselves through their work, and spend their time creatively together.

The activity has won the 2019 UNHCR Youth initiative fund which targets, builds on and develops existing capacity and capabilities of young people.

The request for the workshop came from a group of refugee girls. The lesson is taught by an Iranian refugee, a professional painter. Participants try different techniques: charcoal, tempera, crayons, and even yarn painting.