Keeping the Flag Flying...

Keeping the Flag Flying...

Wednesday 24 April 2013

ANZAC Day 2013 in Greece...Lest we Forget



Lest we forget....


They shall grow not old....as we that are left grow old
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn
At the going down of the sun, and in the morning,

We will remember them,We will remember them...

Australia New Zealand Army Corps


Lest we forget....



The Australian Embassy has invited New Zealanders and Australians and friends of both countries to attend the ANZAC Day Commemorative Celebrations

on

Thursday 25 April 2013, 11.00 a.m.

at

The Commonwealth War Cemetery

in

Alimos

(Posidonos Avenue and Ethnarhou Makariou Street)

Let's all be there, as we are every year, to honour the memory of those valiant young men who came to the other side of the world to fight , not just in World War I but in World War II as well, so that we could be free.




Hellenic New Zealand Association,
Athens, Greece

We who to clothe Hellas in freedom fought,
Lie here at rest in praise that fadeth not...




  Official representatives line up to lay wreaths 
in memory of those who fell in Greece 
in the course of duty ...

ANZAC Day
Anzac Day marks the anniversary of the first major military action fought by Australian and New Zealand forces during the First World War, and is held every year on April 25th around the world. Read more



TA LEME: The Greek Community of Wellington's Great New Magazine


Kaloriziko!

Great to see the efforts of our friends in Wellington to keep the community strong and dynamic, ensuring that the rest of us are kept informed as to what is happening in our Greek Communities around New Zealand.

A big thank you to Alexia and Andreas for the honour of an interview which was featured in the very first issue, in September 2012.

If you would like to subscribe or make enquiries please contact TA LEME's two very capable editors

Alexia Koullapis
DDI: +64 27 360-1304
akoullapis@greek.org.nz

Andreas Liolis
DDI: +64 21 040-1260
aliolis@greek.org.nz

Thursday 11 April 2013

Nikos Aslanidis Presents New Zealand's Greek Communities on ET3's Alithina Senaria


 The Chandris Liners brought most of New Zealand's Greek population 
from Greece in the 1950s and 1960s


Recently reporters from Greek National Television's ET3 channel travelled to New Zealand to see and talk to the people who make up what is probably the Greek Community which is the furthest away from Greece... Nikos Aslanidis and his team from Αληθινά Σενάρια gives  us a glimpse of the Wellington and Auckland Greek Communities and talks to both the old and the new immigrants who make up these communities.

 
 Mr and Mrs Despotaki on their wedding day in Auckland

The wave of migration from Greece to New Zealand after New Zealand's involvement in the Second World War and especially in the Battle of Crete over 50 years ago took place under conditions markedly different to those of today.

Greece's current economic crisis has led to a new wave of migration to New Zealand, and as I have said many times, is perhaps the only real positive outcome of this plague which has descended on the people of Greece who are attempting to survive in an environment of austerity, falling income levels, rising prices and rising tax burdens.

 The majority of Greek people have gone from a standard of living where they were relatively comfortably off, with their own house and one or two cars, to the point where almost everyone is struggling to make ends meet, some are managing some are very definitely not, with assistance being given to the unemployed and the homeless, not by the consecutive governments whose gross mishandling of a credit crisis turned it into a humanitarian crisis but by NGOs and voluntary assistance from groups such as Boroume, Doctors without Borders, Kivotos and many others.

Unemployment is approaching an explosive and staggering 30% while Greece has a very talented, highly qualified and educated population of young graduates - their parents have seen to that - who are finding it impossible to get jobs which bear any relation to their studies.

Businesses are closing, very few are opening and there is little economic stimulus provided for new investments by the very short sighted and arrogant representatives of the EU, The European Central bank and the IMF, commonly referred to as the Troika  - grey suited, unimaginative number crunchers, who cannot, or will not, see the people behind the numbers and continue demanding their pound of flesh in order to 'save' Greece while killing her people so to speak.

When people do manage to find employment in Greece, the almighty Troika has ensured that they will only be entitled to the basic pay rate of around 500 euro per month... that's a grand total of 20 euros per working day...

Things will improvem but in the meantime it is no wonder that these young people are spreading their wings and by doing so enriching our Communities abroad.

Our New Zealand Greek Community is one of these.

Auckland's Aghia Triada Church and Greek Community Centre

In a very interesting Part I, Mr Aslanidis talks to some of the older immigrants who went to New Zealand from Crete and from other parts of the world to Wellington and Auckland in the late 1950's and early 1960's, to their children and grandchildren as well as to some of the most recent additions, who are adding a new and dynamic dimension to Greek life in New Zealand.

You can watch Part I of the documentary here.

Part 2, will be shown later this week, on Thursday evening at around 10.30 Greek time.

Enjoy!