62 marieclaire.com.auPHOTOGRAPHED BY GREG DONAHUE; LYNSEY ADDARIO/GETTY IMAGES REPORTAGE. TEXT BY GREG DONAHUEELLEN DOWNES, 24, IS A BRITISH
VOLUNTEER LIVING IN ROOM 609
During the off-season of the outdoor cinema she runs in Cambridge, England,
Downes headed to Athens to teach English to refugees. “The place I planned to go
to was full,” she says, but after googling “refugee + accommodation” she found
herself standing at the reception desk in City Plaza. “I realised quickly there wasn’t
a school and I spent two months doing 12-hour days to get it running. I fell in love
with the project.” Now, the dedicated classroom space in room 715 helps dozens
of adults and children a week with language, pottery and self-defence classes.
“There are women who have never been in a classroom, so even the concept
of something being on a board and copying it is new,” she says. “If they’ve lived
their life being a mother and a wife in the house – being hidden in a way- and then suddenly they’re allowed to be more free, it’s really amazing to see.”
FRLAN KATHUDA
MYOLD, 47, IS FROM
SYRIA. SHE OCCUPIES
ROOM 513 WITH HER
SISTER, ALIA
Separated from her older sister, Alia, when
someone stole her papers from their tent
on the Greek islands, Frlan, 47, spent two
months alone in a refugee camp. “I was
fleeing violence, but there were times that
I wanted to go back,” she says. Frlan keeps
the photos of the bruises she received
at the hands of thugs in the camp as a
reminder of the conditions she endured.
The sisters were reunited when a friend
told Frlan that Alia was living in City Plaza.
“We are all here as one family,” she smiles.
Alia adds the two are “always together”
and they enjoy inviting guests for tea
in the room they share.
New Year’s Eve was a highlight of the
nearly six months they’ve spent at the hotel.
“We made cakes in the kitchen and gave
them to people on the streets. We watched
the fireworks and clapped together,” she
remembers. “And most beautiful of all,
people on the streets shouted, ‘Happy
New Year!’ to us, and we shouted back.”Travelling from England
to help, Ellen Downes set
up the only school for
refugees at the hotel.The residents of the
City Plaza Hotel enjoy a
women-only rooftop dance
party once a week.WORLD REPORT