Wildfires across Greece, please volunteer or donate 20 euro to support those
affected by fire disaster
Kid & Family at the heart of a national disasterand again I call out to you for your help. As fires rage across Greece, firstly, I ask for your hands-on support as volunteerand secondly, I ask you to give a donationof 20 euro to enable us to support vulnerable people left homeless from the worst wildfires raging across the Peloponnese.
In Kalamata, Mani, Ilia, all over the country, we are in the middle of a national disaster, thousands of hectares of forests and residential areas, have been turned into ashes, forcing people to flee their homes and possessions at short notice to save their lives.
The worst of the fires have been in Athens, Evia and Peloponese where many villages have been evacuated. On Thursday, 11 of August, the fires came close to the site of Ancient Olympia.
According to news reports, the fire raged through the surrounding areas easily on Tuesday as the firefighting aircraft could not fly due to high temperatures and some faced maintenance problems.
I have seen Video footage shared on social media showing residents shouting: “Send us an aircraft we are going to burn.”
From where I am based currently in Kalamata I am in constant contact with the brave men and women of our fire service who are putting their lives at risk to save others.Ordinary men and women with families who do an extraordinary job.
Despite a relative fall in temperatures on Friday, the wind-fanned blazes have spread further, putting more areas in danger. It’s a frightening situation.
Things are extremely difficultand fire our department have said, they expect things to get worse as wind intensity picks up and start to fan the flames, after extreme heat of 47 degrees.
Authorities have shut down a section of the national highway between Corinth, Tripoli and Kalamata due to the uncontrolled fire in different parts of the region.
Several villages have been evacuated since the early hours of the morning and I am in the process of turning my family home into a refuge for people who have lost everything in the fires. I am providing a home to 115 peopleinside the house and setting up tents as temporary shelteroutside in the garden. I am keen to provide support particularly for older people and children.
A small group of volunteers are already providing food and most importantly therapy for people who need help to deal with the aftermath of seeing their homes burn.
“It’s a desperate situation. The fire goes where it wants, when it wants, and nobody can stop it,” Dorida Mayor GiorgosKapentzonis told state-run Athens Macedonian News Agency on Friday and called on the government to send help.
Meanwhile, teams of animal welfare volunteers are in the burning areas to save domestic, stray and wildlife animals as the fires have destroyed one of Attica’s biggest forests and burned hundreds of homes.
I ask you to prove a minimum of 20 Euros to help us provide shelter and food and importantly psychiatric support. If you can give us your time as a volunteer your help has never been more appreciated.
My heartfelt thanks for your kindness and help, Kid & Family can only do the work we do with you by our side. We exist toprovidehope, care, and support to those in desperate need in times of crisis. This is a time of great crisis. With you by our side we can give hope and provide a guiding light when things seem hopeless.
Warmest thanks
Links:
Dear friends,
All countries experience the Pandemic with consequences that threaten mostly middle class. Greece faced the economic crisis with stoicism creating a shield of protection for all European countries, to the waves of refugees and illegal imigrants entering from Turkey,giving the last piece of bread that poor Greeks on the islands had. Greece since 2009 still face 5 types of crisis
1. The economical crisis that left homeless or unemployed 43% of the population, still suffering from irrational memorandums, which brought only disaster to Greece and many other countries as well.
2. The confluence of refugees and illegal immingrands of all nations, entering our country in thousands, still stuck in Greece, as many countries refuse to accept more refugees in their society.
3. The numerous threats and violations of our airspace and see frontiers of the Turkish Government and all illegal behaviour against our islands in the Aegean sea.
4. The Pandemic we all experience on planet, treats Greece that supported Europe hosting refugees, giving access to our kids and adults only to , Astrazeneca vaccine concidered as a 3rd world country,.
During 2021, after a 16 months period of strickt lockdown, we face a Pandemic of of Mental Health disorders that hits middle class and youth. Greek society experiences an unprecedented number of suicides.
More than 40% of stores and businesses in the private sector, that accieved to survive memorandum, declared bankrupcy due to one-and-a-half year continuous lockdowns.
Suicide indicative cases :
01/04/2021, 20:56 suicide -37-year-old football player, Dimitris Georgalis (Creta island) https://bit.ly/2P6Akp9
04/04/2021, suicide of the 62-year-old man at the national Hospital –C19 patient (Volos town) https://bit.ly/3n2Je3v
18/03/2021, suicide - 39-year-old father of a 5 years old boy, his wife already pregnant to their second kid , living at Valira village of Messinia - south Peloponese comitted suicide , found hunged in his own olive oil factory, due to economical problems https://bit.ly/3aA4bxz
20/03/2021, suicide of the 30-year-old man positive for C19 was found hanging from a tree (Evia town) https://bit.ly/3sAFEyP
29/03/2021, 09:29 suicide of the 23-year-old Kyriakos Evangelatos,(Kefalonia island) https://bit.ly/2QijDHQ
HUNGER cases At Messinia area of Peloponese 12.500 new cases of unemployed people are depended on food distributions. We mention that Kalamata , reputated for the Olive Oil , is the capital of Messinia with a population of 69.000 people used to be a rich area!
Greece’s economic depression has pushed families to the brink. As of the fall of 2021, one in five households and nearly 800,000 children were living below the poverty line. More than half of all Greeks lack health insurance. These staggering numbers cannot communicate the impact on individuals and families. In the face of unrelenting austerity and government budget cuts, it is nonprofits on the ground that are repeatedly called on to do more with less.
The umber of Greek pensioners at risk of poverty compared to other EU countries is huge. Thitd age that used to support unemployed parents with young kids are now in a position of despair poverty.
Kid & Family struggles to cover the new demands for support we receve every day, the moment that all sponsors are devastated by fincancing mostly hospitals and health care when at the same time Hunger rases up in youth and old people extremely fast.
We count on your support to cover the basic needs of alimentation for thousants of kids
stay by our site during this dark period. Help us keep kids and old people alive, so they have the courage to hope and live.
please warm up hope
Warm regards
Links:
Dear friends and supporters,
“Children need to learn to transcend reality, not just serve it.
By adapting the child our own reality, we kill his ability to dream”.
by Eugene Trivizas, one of the best writers of books for children.
We are very much concerned about you and your families. Hope you remain safe at home. In peace and solidarity, we will gain this fight for life together, supporting each other with care and patience.
Please remember there are kids during C19 umprotected from the virus, evern worst from hunger and winter cold, as there is no roof over their head.
There is no doubt that the financial crisis had an immense effect to all. As economic growth declined, many people suddenly found out that their financial situation was as precarious as someone unemployed or in a low paid job. Families with low incomes were the worst affected by the crisis. Many people still suffer from redundancies, house repossessions, and credit card debt. Most struggle to pay monthly household bills. When household income is lost, there is a significant social impact as well.
This crisis is increasingly putting at risk the basic needs of families in terms of financial resources, availability of quality services and provision of adequate time arrangements. Unfortunately, poverty and social exclusion of families will continue to rise. Undoubtedly, crisis is having a heavy impact on the daily lives of millions of families, children and young people. The basic "characteristics" of this reality are feelings of insecurity (economic and social), feelings of vulnerability and lack of trust in institutions, phobia and suspicion in everyday life and uncertainty for the future. In fact, crisis’ effects appear even more extended from the moment that it "threatens" people's lives, their mental balance, their personal and family relationships, social cohesion and peace.
Kid & Family helps these families to survive. We offer on-site medical care, psychological assistance, medicines, food supplements, food, clothing, schoolbooks, toys, detergents and personal hygiene items. The organization also organizes activities for children and provides social support. It also develops solidarity and public awareness actions. It offers free hairdressing, free private lessons for kids who need it.
We need your support, in order to relief these families.Social solidarity functions in multiple levels, since it cultivates human sympathy and sensitivity, cares for vulnerable people and strengthens their dignity, contributes to the creation of just social structures and promotes the common good of society.
Kids & Family, during this enormously difficult period for kids and youngsters, undertakes initiatives in order to protect their life as well as their well being.
We take the risk to remain on families side during Corona Virus. Volunteering as you realize in every country, is almost impossible, The fear of C19 made many people to quit volunteering. We remain on the ground, only with a small force of people, so we decided to offer to all big cities restaurant tickets, so they can order or buy themselves. So we are able to fulfill the needs of villages or small towns with the rest of volunteers still remaining on duty! .
Kid & Family is not just an alternative. It is more than obvious that the state alone and the private sector individually fail to provide the necessary environment for societies to survive. That is where the need for a social solidarity society comes in, where all members should contribute by creating a healthy society, capable of defending itself against challenges and able to give its citizens the basic means of survival as well as the opportunity to dream and make their dreams come true.
They say that children are our future. We say that children can only change the future if adults act responsible now. So, future is NOW.
Kid & Family will remain on the ground. We will not abandon distributions. Restaurant tickets will fulfill the plate of the kids during Christmas, during Covid, as we made with your precious support the BEST HUG OF CARE!
Humans United Glovally. This is our H.U.G. for Christmas
Our message to you
And to all the pain, hunger and fear we all face from a different point of view each one.
This Christmas spread this H.U.G. as a message and action of a NEW LIFE COMING.
with your help can provide food, medicines, doctors and essencials, because your donations and supportert can save the kids and the community even the moment we struggle for volunteers.
WAYS YOU CAN HELP from home
◊ Ηelp us buy 1.000 bottles of cod liver oil to help kids with poor nutrition during Covid
◊ Buy restaurant tickets and feed directly a kid, or a family (SEE attach: table of costs "SOS MEALS"
◊ Become a distant-volunteer by posting our GlobalGiving projects on your social media or group pages :
goto.gg/1520 Kids & Families in hunger, in Greece
goto.gg/28123 Kids with mental disorders
goto.gg/22577 Refugee kids & families
goto.gg/34750 Families, victims of natural disasters.
◊. Dedicate this years’ Festive Days to our causes. A stable though small help such as a reccurring donation, gives security of a meal /day for a month! Buy our restaurant tickets forkids & families in need.
◊. Dedicate a dinner or any festive day with your families to our causes, invite friends to support these efforts on social media and OPEN yout H.U.G. with us, on GlobalGiving.
Please stay by our side! support our efforts on the ground during C19, by creating a strong network of supporters and donators for the people in need.
United we can face all disasters.
“The more difficult the social conditions, the stronger the need to envision a brighter future”. Eugene Trivizas
Thank you in advance for your support!
Enjoy the rest of the days at home, as soon everything will turn to normal.
Please be confident to life and solidarity.
We warmly wish you to experience this Christmas, the fulfilness our hearts experience on distributions for kids. Stay tide with precious friends and neighbours.
Let us share with you our H.U.G this Christmas
Humans United Globally is our gift and our with to you and to your beloved ones
Warm thanks for all of your support and Merry Cristmas !
Dear friends and supporters,
As this new dark era for the Youth population is growing and expanding throughout Greece, we are making a huge effort to take measures in order to protect these childrens' life and well-being as poverty, hunger, unemployment and violence have been on the rise the past year.
At the same time education is being seriously down-graded, as there is no preparation of the Greek language for refugee children before they enter or apply for any class in the Greek schools. From the moment that our goverment eliminated, for so called economical reasons, the total number of schools, the ones stillleft functioning receve a much higher number of students of which barely a 30% speaks some greek.-and this schools which are based in the center of the capital. Alimentation is poor for every student as school meals do not exist in Greece. In addition, psychologists are no longer employed at 87% of public schools.
We are honored that the Panteion University requested our help on their research on the huige affect hunger has on childrens mental and physical health. Also the Greek Ministry of Culture and Education invited us on a 3 hour emission on the National TV (ΕΡΤ1) on November 20th 2018 (16:00-19:00 greek time) inorder to present the exact image we have on food distributions by "Kid & Family" and the Psychological support we provide for cases of mental distorders such as bipolar depression, border line and self-harm that affect 50%-68% of children and youths at the public schools, an alarming phenomenon, more so because Greece has never experienced such a phenomena in the past. This is the reason why departments of auto-catastrofical behavior prevention do not exist in Greek Universities or for that matter i9n the whole of the Greek state!!
THE PROBLEM:
Children and Hunger: In addition to the children and families we are already ministering to, there is an emergency need to cover the nutritional needs of children and families, the fire victimes at Mati, Marathonas, Voutsas and victims of the flood at Madoudi of Attika In total, we estimate more than 375 families .
HELP we offered due to your support, in the last 3 months:
15 of November: 264 bottles of fresh milk to the Ngo Solidarity helping refugee kids in need
11 of November: 180 bottles of fresh milk to the Ngo "Arsis" helping children who are victims of the floods
11 of October: 659 items: of cereals, milk and hygienic products to kids, fire victimes in Athens
21 of September: 1056 bottles of fresh milk to fire victims of Mati, Marathonas municipality
21 of September: 983 bottles of fresh milk to the fire victims of N,Makri, Voutsas,
480 pillows and blankets
Many second hand clothes and shoes offered by citizents.
Supplied medicines to 782 children .
pls view attached files , official delivery note and the thank-you letters of the Municipalities were we struggle to save the lives of families in desparate need. (dispatch notes for every food distriution)
what we need... is your support !
how you can help ...
1. Any amount you donate is crucial. All amounts are tax dedictuble in your country. Use Global Giving receipt
2. Ιf you visit Greece please contact us, so you rent our airbnb in the historical center of Athens, in a luxury flat next to the Acropolis, at a very attractive price.
3. Come as a volunteer! We offer you a beautiful indipedent room during your stay
4. Become a distance- volunteer by posting on your social media pages our global giving projects
- goto.gg/1520 Kids in hunger in Greece
- goto.gg/28123 Kids with mental disorders
- goto.gg/22577 Refugee kids
- goto.gg/34750 kids fire victimes
5. Dedicate this new year of 2019 a monthly fee to help our causes. Even a little bit helps. A stable though small help gives as the ability and security to help our children in need.
6. Dedicate a dinner or any festive day with your friends and families to our causes, invite friends to support these efforts and send us your help on Global Giving
WE COUNT ON YOUR SUPPORT MORE THAN YOU KNOW!
OPEN YOUR HUG this New Year as HUMANS UNITED GLOBALLY for Youth
REMEMBER: UNITED we can save lives!
Alone we can not do much...
The world works when
WE synchronize, when WE work and play together, when WE GIVE!
We wish peace, health and wisdom to you, your friends and family
Kind regards
Dear friends and supporters,
we warmly thank you for your letters of support and donations. You encourage our efforts in the this dark period Greece experience.
Kid & Family charity unify all powers and volunteers with H.U.G. - Humans United Globally 4Youth making a strong network of help to the Victimes of these wild fires killers
We are in the middle of Vacations. Athens is empty. Schools are closed. It is extremely difficult under the heat to work at places touched by fire, where ther is no tree left and the heat is unbelievable without even a drop of water. The central water and electricity distribution is under reconstruction. It will take long to get back in a normal life even to basic matters.
Ther is a lot of work needed
Your support is crusial. We thank you for being at our side.It is very important that you continue offering your support at every scheme you consider being useful for emergency relief packages and psychological support for the huge loss of humans and what was left as fortune from 9 years of inhuman taxation and austerity mesures.
THE SITUATION
As we are on the ground every moment of the day and night, we had no access to internet or electricity, we are more than excausted, as the last 10 years we try to face impossible situations. They country has been transformed to a point of accumulation of tragedies. We are proud to still have volunteers as everyone is tired. We need hands and funds to go on.
We see products accumulated in mayors' warehouses without any kind of efficiency to get distributed. We see no planning for building up a network of help.
Once more we are happy we can work efficiently directly to people as always with our own network. KID & FAMILY our sponsor is a grate helping hand for "Emergency relief packages" helping directly people with home delivery of all essencials. She is on our site. Our psychologists, Greeks all over the world are connected with us to give immediate support throught skybe, phone, face to face FOR FREE in Greek.
ALL BASIC NEEDS URGE:
1. PSYCHOLOGICAL SUPPORT AND SCREENING OF ALL kids & families IN NEED
Mobile phones, FAST Laptops for skybe ( supporting with pshycologists and psychiatrists, through skybe or phone. We need to provide FIRE victimes with any kind of phone they rarely have any! Everything is destroyed) This equipment will be also used for screening the needs of people. Sticks or mobile internet. We try hard to motivate people even to face their homes. The have no courage to act. Street are empty. There is nothing. No NGO unless the red cross the first 3 days. We see the police everywere a few soldiers, noone else. Volunteers are accumulated at ware houses were there is no plan for acting. We give them tasks and tools to go on.
HUG POINTS declared by PRINTED POSTERS were we give Phone number and email so each individual can have direct access to help (material or Pshycological) IN PERSON! DISCRITLY IF NEEDED! Office equipment needed. Tents too. Throught HUG POINTS we provide to all Fire Victimes AND Firemen ALSO: Glasses for free, Books, cloths, food, scolarship equipment that we ll need to provide for September!
2. CLEANING THE AREA
We need to provide basic Tools and materials for cuting, cleaning, bags , baskets etc to families, even for just cleaning the area and cut the burned branched. It is the most ergent to do after food and psychological support. Every home lost all kind of tools and equipment. We saw a 22 years young man trying to cut a branch with nifes. People are scared to keep all these burnt trees next to the ruines. A new fire is possible if they don't clean fast.
3. FEEDING PEOPLE: We need 5€ / person to give HUG MEALS. We found under this extremely cheap price restaurant tickets that can provide full meal with this low price. We thank much the greek restaurants for this huge offer. Please help us to provide as much MEALS as possible.! There are 1.200 families in the streets. It is not true the gossipe papers talks about rich people who maintane just a vacation house. For a 35% of people this is true. The rest of the families, are permenent regident of the areas, MATI, N.VOUTSAS, KINETTA, RAFINA, ALEPOCHORI and a several smaller communities of 15 houses each that ARE NEVER MENTIONED ON THE NEWS! Of course MATI is the area with the biggest number of people who passed away!
All of their houses and at least 200 families, lost people. Victimes passed away the same area we work, giving help.
Any time it is possible to find ourselves in front of the body of a person missing.
The population of Greece is in a huge chock when we realize that every years brings the country in a worst position, when the population is so much melted with all kind of nationalities in crusial need too. Under the burglars eye, Police is everywhere on the streets. The absolute abscence of multinational NGOs who were present the first year of the massive refugee entrance in the city, make people angry. The regional Charities or NGOs also absent in the majority excausted from 9 years of efforts to recover the endless problems our country faces.
All nationaties living in Greece now have a common point. Anger. Trauma. Loss. Insecurity.
THE WAY WE ACT:
We put a few Big Posters, as far as we get funds to put mor
OUR ACTION PLANNING
1. HUG offers psychological - psychiatric care, medicines AND essensials at its HUG POINT. H.U.G. POINT give us direct access to us without any intermediate!!! So we provide in person products and support.!
2."Kid & Family CHARITY" as our sponsot in Global giving, offers us the network and products, so we distribute in person to people in need.! We are very district on that
"EMENRGENCY RELIEF PACKAGES" on the Grounds of Fire. WE ARE ABLE TO COVER due to the 9 years of network and experience on distributions of "emergency packages" ALL OF THE 3 AREAS MOSTLY TOUCHED BY THIS DEMONIC FIRE.
warm thanks for your time and attention
stay by our site
Roumpini Terzaki
ARTICLES
I translate for you a part of the article we attached in Greek from "Kathimerini" newspaper. "National Depression: article by Theodore Georgakopoulos / newspaper – “Kathimerini” 03.08.2018 : 20:50
You know why kids and families, fire victims, are angry. You know it and i know it. We are exuberant with the almost inhuman strategy of the goverment of managing the crisis. It is just a communication management, we are angry with the authorities who declare irresponsible, with vulgarity. An untold tragedy is happening here. The country pass throught many social and economical erthquicks The common back ground of pain and danger of all of us, a timeless anger and pain, that another disaster,like this wild fire will happen (or the floods in “Mandra Attikis”, or the oil spill in Argosaronic golf, or the fires of 2009, or the fires of 2007, or even "minor" things like the interruption of water supply in Thessaloniki because a pipe broke, (all Greeks, you understand what I mean) All comes to the surface with this fire. But incidences like this tragedy, with a mechanism of saving lives, works uncoordinated, depending on the fidelity of individuals. Helpless individuals. We should be saved ourselves, although no one has trained us how to respond to such situations when we had never been provided with training or information. We even know that there is an existing training on natural disasters
We all know that our anger faces the useless policy of regional governors and the mayors, but goes deeper, more broadly, the substrate of the anger we feel is addressed to each of our fellow citizens separately, in our own self, in our collective, relentless responsibility, which, two hundred years ago, we refuse to make (or, at least, demand) a functioning society, constantly protesting, selling our vote for crumbs, obedient to unreasonable sentiments, waiting for everything, abandoned and so we stand ten days now, each one alone, we cried for the absence any security and responsibility, concentrated all, in the form of charred girls in the arms of their burnt grandparents. All dead.
ARTICLES
https://katohika.gr/stranger-voice/oi-gmimenes-oi-mko-sas-pou-einai-tora-ante-kai-gamisou-aristera/
https://www.kinima-ypervasi.gr/2018/07/blog-post_807.html
National Depression: article by Theodore Georgakopoulos / newspaper – “Kathimerini” 03.08.2018 : 20:50
http://www.kathimerini.gr/978246/opinion/epikairothta/politikh/h-e8nikh-mas-kata8liyh
No precaution to face the fires : article by Arianoutsou / newspaper – “Kathimerini” 30.07.2018
http://www.kathimerini.gr/977395/article/epikairothta/politikh/apoyh-epiteloys-metra-prolhyhs
ARTICLE by Georgia Drakaki
(translated by google translation)
The “Fire” in This Very Country will never stop burning
Greece’s people became literally one hug towards the disastrous wildfires-but, the important is to be sure that this Disaster will never repeat
By Georgia Drakaki, Greek journalist and volunteer
Several hundred Greeks holding candles gathered silently outside parliament in the end of July to remember those who died in deadly wildfires. That picture will never fade out form our memory…
The country's deadliest fire happened in the middle of this summer in the coastal town of Mati, which lies 30 km east of Athens.
About one hundred dead people and many others who are missing or injured in hospitals were enough to make people in the whole country to feel together the need to help, in the way everyone of them is able to help.
Tones of food, medicine and clothes, money in bank accounts and numerous volunteers came like water in the sand for those in need. People without houses, with babies in their hands, with their families and, sometimes, animals dead and burnt found a little oasis to all that organized help which was given to them mainly by the simple citizens.
Even some kids decided to sell their toys and their drawings to make money and give them to the survivors of the Big Disaster.
Solidarity and Love were the winners of this black and blooded summer-why can we not be like this always, even when anyone is dead or injured or homeless? Is this phenomenon something totally natural, because human beings are and act like this, or it’s something that can be taught to the younger people? Can we hope, us the Greeks and, basically, us, the people, for better and more connected societies and bonds?
Even if we suppose that the answer to all those questions is yes, we cannot stop thinking that emotions and solidarity are not enough to save us from a state which faces in a wrong way its citizens. Those buildings there, in Mati, were not supposed to be here-that’s why people could not escape! We know, it is not the best time to discuss this subject, but it is true.
Every one of us, everyone of you wants to feel safe in his or her country, in his or her house. We do not want to face again a disaster like this, which seems to be the same as the ones in the Hollywood movies! It’s a shame to lose our forests, our families and our animals in a way like this, in the 21st century, in a European country.
As sadness turns to anger over one of the worst natural disasters in Greece’s history, many people start going to the courts, against the Greek authorities. What will happen in the end? Who will be punished first?
For now, there is one thing very important to us: to keep being by the side of people who need us, to not lose time discussing about theories and responsibilities and to find a way-magical or not- to promise to our children that this will never, ever happen again!
Links:
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