Description of the integration initiative implemented
She prefers to live in Greece because it is more financially advantageous. Although in the Philippines she would be with her family and could be closer with her grandson, the problem is that the salaries are pretty low. If one is a hard-working person, they will survive but will not be able to purchase anything they want. Despite the difficulties, distance, and alienation of family relationships, everything she did was for the best financially. She feels that the relationship with her employer is characterized by trust. She mentioned that Filipinas carry out domestic work to earn a higher income, but they learn too; for example, in the Philippines, they did not have a vacuum cleaner; we use manual walis (bamboo broom) since the 1970s, especially when they had no electricity supply. They also learn Greek or recipes or what life in a European country is like. However, the economic difficulties of the country create multiple problems. Her plans for the future include her return to the Philippines. She wants to be with her family. Until then, the plan is to stay in Greece. However, she is physically and psychologically drained and aware of the difficulty to find stable employment. She always wished for herself to become financially stable, but she has realized that Greece cannot always ensure such goals. Also, she would like to learn the Greek language as the employer she works with always speaks English with her. Due to the crisis, her salary decreased by 400 EUR. This change affected her because she was used to sending larger remittances to support her family in the Philippines, and now this is not possible. She has to pay bills as everything is more expensive: electricity, water, rent, groceries; things are getting worse, and jobs are fewer. She believes that it is not that employers have no income, but they have no financial resources, but they choose not to waste them. Everything now is more expensive, and they have to adapt. Since the economic crisis and now the COVID-19 pandemic, everything has changed. When she stayed exclusively at the employer’s residence, she had fewer expenses as the employer covered most of it. She always depended on the employers; they were the ones who would purchase what she needed while she stayed with them. She calls and communicates with her family often. She uses the internet to video-chat with her son two times a week because he works and communicates on his days off. In the past, she wanted her family to come here, but it is not very easy. Now, the only difference is the salary. In the Philippines, one could work and earn 20000 pesos, which is an equivalent of 300 EUR. Thus, there is an essential financial difference, and in Greece, there are generally more jobs, but currently, one receives less financially due to the country’s economy.

Personal story
As a domestic worker, her tasks include the chores, and anything related: cleaning the windows, furniture and dishes, sweeping the floors, paying the mailman and the bills, shop what they need from the supermarket, take care of their pets. She usually woke up at 7:00 am. She got ready, took a quick bath and began to make breakfast. She had to escort the employer’s children to school or had to be ready for other tasks. She usually prepared coffee, and an American breakfast with toast, honey and bread served on a tray. Around 3.00 pm, because she usually felt tired, the employers allowed her to get some rest. She worked 12 hours every day. She stopped for an hour. She learned how to cook Greek food on her own. The employers did not have any particular preferences regarding their meals. She usually irons the clothes in the afternoon. The space for ironing is in a separate room as the residence has multiple rooms. In her room, she has a bed, a closet, and a TV. She was also allowed to invite friends to the residence. The employers trust her, and when they are away, they allow her to invite her friends so that she does not feel alone. She never went with her employers at their yacht. She had to stay at the residence while they were on vacations because she had to take care of the pets’ cleaning. She said: “These were my other children. I had to feed them every day. I had to use the broom often because of the cat’s fur. I can say that half of my time is spent on these two”. Τhe first day, when she was told that she could start work, she encountered an enormous residence, did not speak the Greek language and was about to work on tasks that were completely different from her educational background, so she felt quite nervous. She interpreted that feeling as her worry of staying with strangers for the first time. She explained that her employer trusted her and tested her on how she cleaned and checked her effectiveness. In the beginning, she would eat lunch with the employers but after a couple of months, she would eat alone. Also, she mentioned that the employer would supervise her. She felt anxious because it was the first time she worked in a foreign country; everything looked different, but she had to survive, and that is what she did. She managed to handle the tasks, workload and employer demands. Once, when she went out, she forgot the keys, and she went straight to the neighbours and asked to call her employer. When they returned, she mentioned that they were not angry with her and told her that it was good that she remembered their phone number and called them. The employer couple spoke English; thus, it was not difficult to communicate with them. The employers provided her with social security contributions from the beginning. She also received bonuses for Christmas, Easter and summer holidays. The monthly salary was 1250 EUR until 2010. Since then, it was dropped to 850-900 EUR. She was allowed to receive phone calls at the residence. She works from Monday to Saturday; her only day-off is Sunday. She leaves the residence every Sunday and has to return in the afternoon. During her time out of the employer’s residence, she stays at a boarding house, which she rents with other five Filipinas, including her sister. She feels exhausted as she is working all day, six days a week. In case of a delay in payments. Regarding her documents, she would consult her employer and friends at the religious congregation and would turn to praying. Sporadically, she would consult a lawyer via her friends for personal issues when there would be a work-related problem. She would not ask for advice from the Union of Solidarity of Philippine Workers in Greece (KASAPI-HELLAS), as it was something different and not related to religion. She is not a member of KASAPI-HELLAS because she is a member of another international religious association. Due to the economic crisis and COVID-19 restrictions, she is currently receiving a lower salary; thus, she has to save a particular amount, write down and plan her budget and monthly expenses carefully, share for rent and remittances to the Philippines, and make estimates and adjustments. She mentioned that one has to know how much he/she pays for the bills, what he/she has to reduce, e.g., supermarket or other expenses. She had to learn to survive in the economy and the recession since she is in Greece. When she got sick, her employer would call a medical doctor at their residence to examine her. They used to help her with healthcare issues. Now, she occasionally books an appointment and visits a doctor in public hospitals or Health Units, e.g., a dentist. She still works for the same employer from Monday to Friday (from 08:00 am to 8:00 pm) on a live-out basis. She mentioned that there are multiple changes due to the economic crisis and that employers now think differently. Although she was provided with social security insurance and contributions since 1998, after 2010, she had to insure herself by being responsible for the social security contributions. She had been without social security insurance and contributions only for a year due to the employer’s limited capacity. She has to subtract the contributions from her salary. The employer deposits half of the salary in the bank and the rest as cash-in-hand. She learned more about the social security contributions and social security insurance via a lawyer to whom she was introduced by one of her friends. She became aware of the processes, what is and what is the use of the Value Added Tax, the Social Security number of her employer and her own.

Analysis of the initiative and individual story
The main reason she left her country was economic. In the Philippines, one could find work, but the income is meager; thus, most cannot support their families. In the Philippines, poverty is widespread. That was also another reason for her leaving and coming to Greece to find another job. Initially, she did not know that she would work as a domestic worker. Her memories were not happy as they lived in the city and worked and then they had to live with her husband’s family in the countryside. They moved to his parents’ house. It was not very easy to live with her mother-in-law, who did not like her. Before coming to Greece, it was neither her choice nor her dream to work there as a domestic worker. Everyday life in the Philippines was very tough. When she arrived in Greece, she left every difficulty and poverty in the Philippines behind because of the higher income. She struggled to change her life for the better. Life over there has many problems. When she left the Philippines, her son was almost seven years old, and her husband was the one who took care of him. Both were affected by the crisis and would wait for the amounts that she would send. However, she did so intermittently, due to Greece’s economic instability. She remembered that she felt like she was entering a new world when she entered the employer’s residence in 1996. She was scared. She thought that she could not stay in Greece for long. She was afraid of making mistakes. She was worried about what she would do in case something happened, and she could not sleep well. She was nervous during the night. She was missing her family back in the Philippines and was thinking about her son and husband. It was not easy because she needed to save payments in order to support her child. She was afraid of the high walls and the size of the residence. When she realized that ironing was too much, she worried that she did not know how to iron the clothes well.

Results and Impact
Since the economic crisis, everything has been more complicated. She believes that things might get worse after the COVID-19 crisis. Here, as long as one works, he/she might gather and save his/her income, but due to the crisis, there is instability, and everything is expensive. Thus, one rises and then falls. They stay here as long as they have an employer, but they do not know how long they can stay. The crisis now is similar with the time she worked in the Philippines at the factory, before coming to Greece. She wished for a higher salary. She wished she could get a house, a car, everything she needed, but she could not contribute as the salary was quite low. She had short-term or long-term plans, but all with all she earned, she bought a house in the province, provided her son with private education, he completed his studies, and bought a tricycle, like a motorbike. Living here in Greece is better than living in the Philippines because, as she said earlier, the income here is better than there. This entire journey, leaving her family, all this effort was certainly worth it.