Our History

Our story began in a single tent in Idomeni in early 2016. Our co-founders, Zarlasht Halaimzai and David and Jenny Altschuler, saw first-hand the enormous gap in psychological and trauma care services for refugees in Europe and humanitarians supporting them. Within just six months and with the support of a team of volunteers, we delivered over 600 sessions and reached nearly 1000 individuals through group support sessions, art therapy, mindfulness and separate sessions for individuals, couples and families. 

Since that first tent, our operations have grown and, from our base in Thessaloniki, we have now reached over 6000 people through our two core programmes Baytna and Dinami which support families and young people. 

In the last few years, we made a special effort to reach even more people and launched a capacity building model, Baytna Hubs, to provide support to partners eager to offer early childhood development programming that is responsive to the needs of refugee children. Following the success of Baytna Hubs, we expanded it to our youth programme, launching Dinami Hubs to likewise help implementing partners launch and sustain trauma-informed youth development programming in Greece. RTI continues to provide bespoke identity and trauma-informed external capacity building to a range of organisations as a core part of its programming.

COVID-19 played a huge role in exacerbating mental health issues among refugees. In 2020 we increased our therapeutic services in dance and movement and launched a pilot group for male refugees online. 

RTI is constantly evolving and growing, listening and tailoring our approach to the needs of displaced people and host communities. Five years on from that tent in Idomeni, we are constantly looking for ways to enhance our support. By targeting well-being and belonging among the communities with whom we work, we help newly-arrived refugees settle, heal, and begin integrating in their new host countries.