Greek Community of Alexandria

Tag: Diaspora

  • Greek consulates around the world to issue official documents

    Greek consulates around the world to issue official documents

    ΟμογένειαThe ministries of the Interior and Foreign Affairs on Friday launched an initiative that will allow Greeks living abroad to apply for official certificates and documents from the country’s consular services around the world.

    The new scheme will operate in pilot mode for a week at the Greek Consulate in Dusseldorf, which is home to hundreds of Greeks who can benefit from the new service. Titled “Proxenos” (Consul), it will allow Greeks all over the world to get hold of birth, marriage and death certificates, as well as other documents within minutes from their nearest consulate, which will have access to central public records databases.

    Also on Friday, Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias announced plans to digitize the ministry’s history archive and to improve its translation service.

    (www.ekathimerini.com)

     

  • Alternate FM Xydakis meets with representatives of the Greek community of Hungary

    Alternate FM Xydakis meets with representatives of the Greek community of Hungary

    ΞυδάκηςOn the third day of his tour of Central European countries, the Alternate Foreign Minister for European Affairs, Nikos Xydakis, met in Budapest with representatives of the Greek community of Hungary. Members of the delegation he met with included the president of the Minority Self-Government of Greek Hungarians, Mr. Koukoumtzis, and the MP representing the Greek minority in the Hungarian Parliament, Laokratis Koranis.
    Mr. Xydakis listened closely to the views and questions of the Greek community, and he briefed them in detail on developments in issues such as the refugee crisis, social security reform and the current state of the Greek economy.

    (www.mfa.gr)

  • Engaging Greek Diaspora to Highlight Greek Talent & Entrepreneurship

    Engaging Greek Diaspora to Highlight Greek Talent & Entrepreneurship

    ΓενικάAt least 300,000 Greeks have abandoned their country during the last seven years of recession. Adding up to the thousands of well-educated and multilingual Greek expats that left before the crisis broke out, they are part of an unprecedented global mobility of skilled employees and entrepreneurs. What binds these people together is a collective identity, which can only be revealed and redefined within the context of an all-embracing community.

    LoveGreece.com and Greek Travel Pages (GTP) have joined forces to showcase the entrepreneurial spirit of the Greeks to the world. The collaboration foresees a LoveGreece weekly column on the GTP Headlines news site which will include a video interview of a Greek entrepreneur that stands out for his/her creative thinking in the business world. Through the exchange of important news on Greek tourism and stories of the individuals hosted on LoveGreece.com, the two sites aim to maximize the recipients of their message. They both agree that Greece’s entrepreneurs and professionals, with their ethos and vision, are an important aspect of the country which is worth highlighting to the world.

    This year, Greek Travel Pages (GTP) marks 40 years of continuous and creative presence in support of Greek tourism and industry professionals. GTP, along with Tornos News, constitutes the main source of information for Greek tourism for both professionals and final consumers in Greece and abroad. Through its networks and national and international partnerships, it aims to promote and facilitate networking among the sector’s enterprises.

    Inspired by the dynamism and creativity of the Greek entrepreneurial spirit, LoveGreece was founded in 2013 as an initiative to boost and promote the country’s image abroad by profiling talented and successful Greeks. Powered by Gina Mamidaki, LoveGreece is an interactive forum showcasing talented Greeks with an outward-looking mentality and potential. It focuses on exceptional entrepreneurs and successful figures from the worlds of research and innovation, arts and culture, education and social responsibility. The aim is to raise people’s interest and help boost demand for Greek products and services. Love Greece ambassadors include artist Lydia Venieri and Spanish Writer and Hellenist Pedro Olalla.

    Love Greece has also joined forces with New Diaspora to communicate the productivity of Greek people both within and outside the borders of their country. Scientists, new startupers, artists, entrepreneurs and businesspeople compose a bloomy and fruitful environment, which the representatives of the two organizations are promoting by creating and exchanging videos, articles and interviews for their respective sites.

    Also launched in 2013, New Diaspora started out as a digital storytelling platform focusing on the new generation of Greeks living abroad during the financial crisis. It has since evolved into a participatory media channel whose aim is to tell the complex story of a migration wave in real time and at the same time engage, connect and inspire democratic dialogue and the prolific interaction of ideas, uncovering the common pulse of a ‘nation without borders’.

    In its effort to empower Greek ‘neo-migrants’, its actions include the production and distribution of news stories, interviews and other forms of audiovisual and interactive content, the production of web documentaries, as well as the organization of live-streamed conferences, film screenings and networking events.

    Within this framework, New Diaspora crosses the line that conventionally separates content providers from consumers. Users turn into participants, eventually becoming co-authors of their collective narrative. “Not only do we tell our story together, but we are also writing the script of the story we want to tell together. We become the story. By making it a story worth told, we can also become the change”.

    (www.greeknewsagenda.gr)

  • New Greek Diaspora: The Changing Face of Emigration

    New Greek Diaspora: The Changing Face of Emigration

    ΓενικάA report titled “The Changing Face of Emigration: Harnessing the Potential of the New Greek Diaspora” by Jennifer Cavounidis – Senior Research Fellow at the Centre of Planning and Economic Research in Greece (KEPE) – was recently published by the Migration Policy Institute, a think tank based in Washington, DC, dedicated to analysis of the movement of people worldwide. The author, whose research interests are human resources and migration, examines Greek emigration and its economic implications, before exploring policy directions to minimize the costs and maximize the benefits of this mobility. She discusses institutional reforms that can create more and better opportunities in Greece, thereby stemming outflows and rendering return an attractive option, and then turns her attention to Diaspora engagement policies to harness the assets, skills and knowledge of Greeks abroad to enhance development at home.

    As pointed out in the report, for nearly a century, Greece was a traditional migrant-sending country; it transformed into a receiving country only in the 1970s, with a booming economy that allowed the government to introduce repatriation incentives, such as reductions in taxes and import duties. In the wake of the devastating economic crisis that began in 2008, Greece is once again experiencing emigration. But unlike the two periods of large-scale emigration over the course of the 20th century (with primarily low-skilled, low-educated workers seeking unskilled or semi-skilled jobs abroad) – this time, emigrants are mostly highly-educated young people escaping extremely high youth unemployment levels.

    The so called “brain-drain” has become a hot topic in the public debate, considering the dire consequences of the exodus of human capital for the development prospects of Greece and the brain waste incurred by the unemployment and underemployment of educated youth. Even though current concerns about the impact of emigration on the Greek economy have not yet resulted in specific policies to stem outflows or explicitly encourage return, the Greek government has made sincere efforts to this direction by introducing various structural reforms – both in the regulatory framework for businesses and in the labor market – that aim to boost entrepreneurship, investment and employment, while it has utilized EU funds to implement programs that serve the same aim. A noteworthy example of progress made in this sphere is that Greece improved its overall ranking, between 2013 and 2014, in the World Bank’s index on ease of doing business (moving from number 72 to 60 among 189 countries). Such initiatives may help curtail outflows and may eventually induce the return of some emigrants.

    The report looks into a number of government and civil-society initiatives to connect with the Greek Diaspora and encourage their contributions—financial, entrepreneurial, and academic—to their country of heritage. For example, the Greek government’s General Secretariat for Greeks Abroad (GSGA) is identifying the needs of new emigrants in various destination countries. However, despite its efforts to map the Diaspora, the Greek government’s tools may be out of tune with new segments of its target population. GSGA outreach to its newest diaspora members rests on the premise that the traditional focal points of Greek communities abroad (such as the Greek Orthodox Church and Greek cultural activities) appeal to current emigrants. While this might be the perception of older, established emigrants, it is doubtful whether new emigrants approach such organizations to the same degree as their predecessors. The typical young Greek emigrant is highly educated, is an avid user of information technologies, and is likely to identify as a cosmopolitan participating in a global society. Therefore, GSGA needs to rethink its mission and seek alternate sources of information about the new Diaspora other than traditional Diaspora organizations, and explore new ways of staying in touch with today’s wave of emigrants, taking into consideration their huge potential to further national goals, not only in the realm of foreign policy but also in economic development. However, given the current economic climate, Greece may be best served by encouraging Diaspora involvement in Greek economic development from overseas rather than encouraging return at present.

    (greeknewsagenda.gr)