The whitewashed room is clean and tidy, the four beds neatly made. It is one of a few dozen bedrooms at the Melathron hostel perched high above Athens. From its balcony you can look out across the open hills of Pikermi. It is the kind of place a young Western tourist might check into on a Greek island in June.

On the flagstones below, several teenage boys from Afghanistan chat, their words spiced with the scent of roasted chicken from the kitchen across the courtyard. It is almost lunch-time for the thirty refugees residing at the Melathron and for the staff, most of them with the Greek Council for Refugees (GCR).

Pilot scheme

In the dining room, Masoud, a twelve-year-old from Kabul, alternates mouthfuls with smiles. "We have no problems here," says the boy, whose father was reportedly decapitated by the Taliban in 1994.

The privately-owned hostel, with a cafeteria, hot water and central heating, was opened up to refugees in October, under a three-month pilot programme funded by the health and welfare ministry and administered by GCR. The contract has just been renewed for a year, says a spokesperson for deputy health and welfare minister Dimitris Thanos, whose office also funds several other refugee reception centres.

The complex of three-storey buildings that comprise the Melathron are a temporary haven for the families and unaccompanied minors who entered Greece from Turkey in stealth and are awaiting decisions on their asylum applications. There are three meals a day, warm showers and clean clothes; football games at a nearby field, Greek classes and visits to the doctor.

"I'm very happy here," says fourteen-year-old Sohrab from Afghanistan, who arrived in Greece at the end of an eight-month journey from Pakistan in August.

Heading West

His family home in his native village in Baglan, Afghanistan, was also a happy place, he says: "My mother was always smiling. We had a good life." Until one day in 1996: "I was walking home from school with my little brother. I saw our house burning." A Taliban helicopter had bombed it, he says. "My parents and baby sister were killed."

After living with his aunt and little brother in Pakistan for five years, Sohrab says he gave smugglers his $3,500.00 inheritance and headed West. "I still haven't recovered from the trip," he adds, pointing to the dark circles under his eyes. "But the Melathron gives me strength."

Not all reception centres are like the Melathron. After they abandoned their home of five years in Turkey last August in fear of being sent back to Afghanistan, Masoud says, he, his mother and his two brothers spent two nights sleeping in a central Athens park. Then they were taken to a tent camp for refugees outside the capital. "It was awful," says Masoud. "Dirty, no kitchen." Three weeks later they left in the hope of finding somewhere better, and got a room at the Melathron.

Under the terms of the agreement to house refugees at the hostel, the health and welfare ministry rents one of the buildings from its owner, who is responsible for providing the rooms and all related services: meals, linen, utilities, cleaning, minibus transportation and maintenance.

Public-private partnership

The seven GCR staff members assigned to the Melathron are responsible for the day-to-day administration, which includes looking after the refugees: taking them to the doctor, teaching them Greek, taking them on outings.

"We have everything here," says Kiyan, 20, from Afghanistan. "Food. Water. We appreciate that. They treat us like people."

"The staff are wonderful," says Nabil, 16, from Iraq. "We all like it here."

GCR director Giorgios Kosmadakis says he would like to see the pilot programme expanded. The will is there, he explains, but "it's a question of finding the funds."

Kosmadakis also says he doesn't know how long the first group of refugees to find refuge at the Melathron will be allowed stay there. Six to seven months, he ventures, "but it depends on how things go. We just can't put them out onto the street. We'll try to find a way to make the transition smooth for them."

Nabil knows that his stay at the hostel is only temporary, but he is no hurry to check out. "I'd like to live here permanently," he says.