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Photos courtesy of Bindu Paul
and Sarah Woolley
Report on the Study Visit to Greece
| Page 36
GFTU Educational Visit to
Athens January 2016
Delegates Bindu Paul, Dami Benbow, Deanne Ferguson,
Sarah Woolley
Brief Background
Greece entered the European Union in 1980 as one of
the first ten countries and entered the Euro in 2002. The
vision being; a united Europe, people prospering and
educated to continue that way. When Greece entered
the Euro though lives were not facilitated and the
quality of life actually went down though belonging
to Europe was a good tool to negotiate and seen as a
great asset.
Greece’s financial crisis has been building up since 2009
– since then there has been extreme austerity plans,
several Eurozone rescue packages/loans and many
protests often violent against austerity laws.
In 2014 the radical Left Syriza coalition (The Coalition
of the Radical Left) won the European election. It is
the largest party in the Hellenic Parliament; with party
chairman Alexis Tsipras serving as Prime Minister of
Greece from 26 January 2015 to 20 August 2015 and
from 21 September 2015 to Present.
In 2015 Greece and its creditors agreed to a third
bailout after blackmail tactics were used against them,
imposing further spending cuts on the country to avoid
bankruptcy and exit from the Eurozone
After the blackmail Europe is seen by many in Greece
and other countries as a totally undemocratic with a
criminal central bank and commission. They should
have been guarantying the Treaties but instead they are
acting as guarantors and getting money
The GFTU delegation visit to Athens comes at a time
when its country is broken. During our visit we hear
about the impact the debt is having on the Greeks
and in addition we see what help is being done for the
increasing Syrian refugees.
Solidarity Piraeus
We first visited and witnessed the great efforts of
Solidarity Piraeus, a small charity that helps the
homeless. They have been operating for over three
years and work around four times a week - offering food
to the homeless, unemployed and the refugees. They
have over 200 volunteers, which is a real help especially
with the influx of refugees. Over 100 people will arrive
for food and clothes every day. They operate in 4
different centres, they don’t just offer food and clothes
but they also have an education programme teaching
French and English to adults, for children the lessons
cover all subjects including geography and history and
they especially help children with learning difficulties or
who are struggling at school.
The volunteers only work 4 hours a week and don’t get
paid, they do however get to take a selection of food
goods home with them twice a month as payment for
the work that they do or often they will give to others.
The food is donated by supermarkets and are mainly
dry goods though while we were there they had a large
delivery of fresh fish to hand out and is collected by
volunteers; the clothes are donated by the public and
people can pay donations to the charity as one offs or
more regularly .
The unemployed get free health care and often medical
professionals will volunteer their time to help, the
unemployed have to show a card so that they can get
free medicine. These cards do not provide eye care for
free though this is subsidised for unemployed people
which makes it inaccessible to most.
They also send help parcels to the islands who are
dealing with the refugees so they can clean themselves.
We were told that most refugees want to leave Greece
because of the financial problems they are facing and
the fact Greece can’t bear the numbers that are arriving,
but Germany wants Greece to keep the refugees as no
one else wants to take responsibility for them
The volunteers we spoke to had been doing the work
for over three years and could not see them stopping
any time soon. The project now needs over 200
regular volunteers to keep up with the demand from
the refugees as word of mouth around Pireaus and
especially down at the port where many refugees are
arriving is meaning more and more people are using
the services.