Founded in a crisis, built to stay

In the first months of 2022 the founders of Vela — humanitarian professionals with years of experience in Greece — saw a gap in meeting the needs of refugees arriving in Poland. Our two-step approach has been to support the most vulnerable people in collective accommodation shelters, and to help urban populations integrate through community centres.

From July 2022 we offered psychosocial support in Warsaw, including at the Modlińska reception site; we then expanded our mobile teams to Kraków and Wrocław, became UNICEF's child protection partner in three voivodeships, and opened the Aurora Community Centre in Kraków, which is now the heart of our work. When floods struck Lower Silesia in 2024, we were there within days.

We believe in aspiration, guidance, empowerment and unity: we encourage people to dream big, we help them navigate the path, we equip them with tools and knowledge for sustainable change, and — like a constellation — we are at our most potent when we work together. Every month we publish our figures; every policy we work by is public.

Fundacja Vela is governed by a Council — its highest authority, chaired by Marilena Ioannidou with Maria Bikou as vice-chair, and including Chrysa Anagnostopoulou and Apostolos Forlidas — and managed by a Board presided over by Pantelis Dimitriou. We are grateful to be funded by Choose Love, the David & Ruth Lewis Charitable Trust, LOTIC.AI, UNICEF, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, UNHCR, the European Union and the Polish Ministry of Family, Labour and Social Policy.