The Greek Star

New York, New York – The Greek Orthodox Archdiocese’s Office of Ionian Village is excited to announce the establishment of a cooperative one-day program, “Repower Greece Day at Ionian Village.” This groundbreaking event will encourage Ionian Village participants to closely examine their experiences of Greece, cultivate a high level of appreciation of their Greek heritage, and to become ambassadors for the country’s image abroad.

Every summer, Ionian Village provides campers with a transformative experience of Greece, Hellenism and Orthodoxy through a powerful and meaningful travel program. Through close encounters with Greece, her people, and the Greek Orthodox faith, Ionian Village has fostered a love and appreciation of Greece and Hellenism in its participants for over forty years. 

Assisting the Ionian Village team in this visionary program will be Repower Greece, a public diplomacy campaign whose mission is to challenge negative perceptions of Greece on an international scale, replacing them with stories of success and positive experiences in efforts to restore Greece’s worldview. 

Ionian Village, together with Repower Greece, will build upon campers’ transformative experiences of Greece to spark constructive dialogue and heighten awareness among participants of their ability to serve as ambassadors for the country, spreading the positive message of growth and beauty that exemplify Greece. 

“Repower Greece Day at Ionian Village” will infuse aspects of the Repower Greece initiative into traditional Ionian Village daily activities. Preliminary ideas include visual and tangible projects that will creatively allow the participating teenagers to confront their individual thoughts and feelings about Greece. Ionian Village Staff Members will lead these activities, joined by members of the Repower Greece team who will both participate in activities and engage in open forum style discussions with campers throughout the day. 

This programmatic addition to the Ionian Village repertoire will allow Repower Greece to introduce its worthy initiative to a group of more than 350 Greek American young people who will return to America ready to help redefine Greece’s image in the world. As well, Ionian Village campers will benefit from the challenge to understand and evaluate their experiences at an intellectual level. 

Ionian Village is the unique summer camping program of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America located in Peloponnesos, Greece. In two 20-day sessions each summer, Ionian Village campers travel across Greece with their peers to sites of religious and cultural importance. Greek Orthodox teenagers who have completed grades 8 through 12 are eligible for this experience. For more information or to register for the Ionian Village 2013 camping season, visit www.ionianvillage.org.

Repower Greece is coordinated by the Institute for Regional Dialogue & Strategy and FORESIGHT Communications in Athens and Repower Greece Inc., a non-profit organization in New York. For more information on Repower Greece, visit www.repowergreece.com.

COURTESY: REPOWER GREECE

ATHENS, Greece (AP)—A long-standing debate over whether Germany still owes Greece war reparations stemming from the Nazi occupation erupted anew Thursday in a spat between Greece’s foreign minister and Germany’s finance minister.

\The Stavros Niarchos Foundation, upon completing one year since the beginning of its three year initiative to commit funding in the amount of €100 million to help address the effects of the economic crisis in Greece, presented on Monday, February 18 an account of the program’s first year, and announced its future plans for further assistance in addressing the country’s growing social needs.

One year ago, the Foundation decided to undertake certain actions, beyond its usual activities, aiming to provide additional direct support in order to assist with the recovery of individuals and communities affected by the economic crisis. Since the beginning of 2012, the Foundation has provided support totaling €54 million, through 157 grants across the country, and continues to assess new programs and organizations with the purpose of further enhancing the impact of the initiative.

Monday’s event which took place in Athens, Greece was attended by the Prime Minister of Greece, Antonis Samaras, members of the Foundation and of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center, as well as representatives of all the grantees working in conjunction with the Foundation on this initiative.

Following are address excerpts from Andreas Dracopoulos, Co-President of the Board of Directors of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation and Antonis Samaras, Prime Minister of Greece:

Andreas Dracopoulos, Co-President of the Board of Directors of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation:

“Greece, its people and their actual problems truly need a Welfare Society, a fair, dynamic and viable society, where all members, from all sectors, including public, private, not-for-profits, supranational organizations and humanitarian institutions, have to contribute towards creating a healthy society, able to defend itself against today’s many and complex challenges; a society also able to provide the basic needs of life for its citizens; to allow for decency, dignity, and civility; and, last but not least, to provide an opportunity to dream, to help make dreams become reality, and to hope for a better tomorrow. All positive forces have to collaborate towards this end.”

Antonis Samaras, Prime Minister of Greece:

“I believe, Your Grace, ladies and gentlemen, I believe in the strength, the will, the earnestness, the heart of the Greek people, especially during these hard, these cruel times our country is going through. This truly important project initiated by the Foundation that goes further, against, versus the crisis, has already began to take root, as you heard, and to bear important fruit. It gives us strength. It gives us courage.

 This commitment, a moral commitment, by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation to provide relief for Greek society, supporting those most in need, namely the vulnerable communities, easing their suffering with a plan and a schedule. There is no need for me to speak of the dozens new grants, totaling several hundred million euro, this social mission continues ceaselessly, as befits the Niarchos Foundation. It’s not just the millions distributed in 2012, or those that will be distributed in 2013, for those vulnerable social groups; it is also that extraordinary cultural project in progress at Faliro Bay, which will open up thousands of employment positions for young people, who so sorely need them.

 In these critical times, Mr. President, I would like you to know that the Greek government is fighting, day and night, to lift our country back up. To put us back on that course us economists call “economic recovery”. To make Greece strong again, all over, through development, to provide opportunities for everyone, and especially the young people, for work, for employment, so that we may also achieve that all-important objective known as social cohesion, which has naturally been heavily wounded during these hard times, when Greece finds itself a sad protagonist, with unemployment among young people having reached a record 60%. 

 So I firmly believe in the strength, the will, the earnestness and the heart of the Greeks, the Greek nation, and the efforts of people, such as president Andreas Dracopoulos, who have passion, who have vision, who have programs, and I believe in this great project by the Niarchos Foundation. I am certain that the Greek people, all of us together, will win this battle in the end, with inspiration, with hard work, with our Greek philotimo and, most importantly, with love for our country, which is being tested to its very limit. 

Once more and on behalf, I am sure, of the entire Greek nation, a big thank you to the Stavros Niarchos Foundation.  Thank you so much.”

In addition, six indicative organizations/grantees presented their work and the importance of the support within the current socioeconomic environment, underlining the need for an immediate and well-organized intervention towards the implementation of contemporary programs that respond to the current social needs and help ensure that the effects of the crisis do not encumber the country’s future generations.

The organizations and programs that presented are as follows:

-         Funding for the Social Housing Program and the creation of Day Care Centers for the Homeless (PRAKSIS)

-         Food aid and nutrition educational program in schools (Prolepsis)

-         Mobile medical unit program (Olympic Village Polyclinic)

-         Child support programs (Mitera – Center for the Protection of Children in Attica)

-         Educational program at the Center for Agricultural Entrepreneurship (American Farm School)

-         Program supporting scholarships for Greek students in Canadian universities – the Ambassador of Canada in Greece, Mr. Robert Peck, participated in this presentation. 

 About the Stavros Niarchos Foundation

The Stavros Niarchos Foundation (www.SNF.org) is one of the world’s leading international philanthropic organizations, making grants in the areas of arts and culture, education, health and medicine, and social welfare. The Foundation funds organizations and projects that exhibit strong leadership and sound management and that have the potential to achieve a broad, lasting and positive impact. The Foundation also seeks actively to support projects that facilitate the formation of public-private partnerships as effective means for serving public welfare.

From 1996 until today, the Stavros Niarchos Foundation has approved grant commitments of €1 billion ($1.3 billion), through 2,400 grants to nonprofit organizations in 109 nations around the world. Excluding the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center (SNFCC), the Foundation’s funding is equally divided between grants in Greece and international ones.

In response to the ongoing socio-economic crisis in Greece, the Foundation announced, in January 2012, a grant initiative to provide additional support of €100 million ($130 million) over the next three years, to help ease the adverse effects of the deepening crisis. Since then, and as part of the initiative, the Foundation has committed grants totaling €53,703,000 ($69 million) in support of numerous not-for-profit organizations around the country, and is the process of approving a number of additional grants.

The Foundation’s largest single gift (€566/$796 million) is the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center (SNFCC), in Athens. The Stavros Niarchos Foundation firmly believes that the project is of great national importance, even more so under the current socio-economic conditions. It remains a testament and a commitment to the country’s future, at a critical historical juncture. It is also an engine of short- to mid-term economic stimulus, which is essential under the current circumstances.

Courtesy: Stavros Niarchos Foundation

Known to the world for their sublime beaches and unique architecture, the Cycladic islands now aspire to acquaint visitors with one of their lesser known gifts: the 40 different types of cheese that they produce.

A new initiative launched by the Ministry of Rural Development and Food aims to acquaint Greeks and foreigners with the delicious assortment of the Cyclades’ cheese products, as well as with the historical, cultural and even mythological elements related to their production.

 

Cycladic cheeses are extremely diverse, ranging from the sharp-taste, salty kopanisti cream cheese and the peppery Syros San Michali, to the milder Naxos graviera and manoura from Sifnos Island. The campaign, dubbed Cycladic Cheese Pallet, was presented at the 8th Zootechnia animal farming exhibition in Thessaloniki on February 11, and will serve as a pilot for future initiatives.

 

 

COURTESY: Greek News Agenda

Works on the new building of the National Museum of Contemporary will be completed by March 2014, Alternate Minister of Education, Religious Affairs & Culture, Konstantinos Tzavaras, announced during a visit to the building site on January 24. 

The inauguration of the new building will thus coincide with the Greek EU Presidency, Tzavaras said, and the museum will be hosting Presidency events.

The new museum will be housed at the old Fix brewery, currently under reconstruction. The original Fix brewery building, an industrial urban landmark, in the centre of Athens, was built by pioneer post-war architect Takis Zenetos.

COURTESY Greek News Agenda: New Museum of Contemporary Art  

“Eat with a Local” has recently expanded to Greece. This unique program not only provides an opportunity for Greeks to supplement their incomes a bit during the crisis and beyond, but opens them to connections with people from all over the world, and they can show visitors the finer points of their home country.