KIPOS

KIPOS is a space for free circulation of ideas and knowledge, existing since 2014 in Thessaloniki, Greece. Following the principles of non-formal education and life-long learning, KIPOS supports the development of adults and youth's potential, creativity, talents, initiative and social responsibility, through the acquisition of related knowledge, skills, attitudes and values. Providing a complementarity with formal learning educational institutions, KIPOS offers a variety of different topics in seminars and workshops for children and adults and has a long list of hosted activities and creative collaborations. In KIPOS, we bring the opportunity to learn about anything with joy, socialize with people with the same interests, amoung a variety of ages or background. KIPOS empowers individuals to be actors of their own development and to participate actively in community life. KIPOS successfully organises seminars, workshops, and events for six years, and became the most important and most well-known venue of the city to learn in a non-formal way and be creative. The seminars are covering a wide spectrum of subjects like history of art, philosophy, politics, history, theater, cinema, psychology, astronomy, geography, or even around life skills and digital skills. KIPOS provides creative workshops like sculpting, creative writing, sewing, poetry, painting, documentary, cinema acting, book binding, and many more. The Youth Theater program is also worth mentioning as it offers young people the opportunity to publicly present the final play. KIPOS is also organizing a diversity of cultural events every month, mostly reflecting on the city’s history, art, and multiculturalism. In the context of the Covid-19, KIPOS managed to adapt its activities, proposing online seminars and always aiming to improve on its practice by focusing on interactivity and engagement. This experience and critical practice is a great asset for the planning of future project with a European scale. KIPOS has been welcoming international young people through Erasmus+ Young Entrepreneur the last years, and has collaborated with many international NGOs. It has hosted seminars, training sessions, and meetings for the human rights organisation ActionAid, Refugee Trauma, and Terre des Hommes. It has collaborated with British Institutions to host a project on Greek culture and Greek Crisis, and has collaborated as well with the Timeless Impact Academy in Germany to offer the training course « Mindfulness and Meditation ».