The Greek Orthodox Community of SA (GOCSA) will join in celebrating International Women’s Day2023 (IWD) on Wednesday, March 8.
IWD is an annual celebration of the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women, and this year’s global theme is #EmbraceEquity.
The celebration will be held at 7pm for a 7.30pm start on Wednesday, 8 March 2023, Olympic Hall, 288 Franklin Street, Adelaide.
This year, GOCSA have two exceptional guest speakers – Adriana Christopoulos, Chair of the South Australian Multicultural Commission, and Argyro Vourdoumpa, an Adelaide-based freelance journalist and former Editor of The Greek Herald newspaper.
Ms Vourdoumpa told The Greek Herald there are many women in our Greek communities around Australia who “have worked tirelessly behind the scenes to keep our heritage alive and help shape the country we live in today,” and they deserve to be recognised.
“It’s time we unearth and share the stories. Storytelling can influence change, and men must also be part of the conversation. The road to equity is a collaborative job,” Ms Vourdoumpa adds.
“I am grateful to GOCSA for starting the conversation, and I look forward to sharing my story for equity. If you are in Adelaide, come along! You don’t need to be Greek to attend!”
On the night, GOCSA will also present two of its members with Appreciation Awards, acknowledging their contribution and continual support to our community.
Renowned photographer, Effy Alexakis, is set to hold the first major Australian launch of her new book Effy Alexakis: Forty Photographs – A Year at a Time at the Hellenic Club of Canberra in the Australian Capital Territory.
The limited edition, fine art publication will be officially launched at the Club on Sunday, March 5 at 3pm in the Apollo Room.
During the launch, Alexakis and historian Leonard Janiszewski will be ‘in conversation’ with Justice Chrissa Loukas-Karlsson talking about the new book, its insights into the Greek Australian experience, their ongoing documentary project, and how their life’s work has impacted upon their personal experiences.
Front cover of the new book. Photos supplied.Justice Chrissa Loukas-Karlsson
In the new book, Alexakis accessed her vast archive on the Greek Australian experience and selected one contemporary image to represent each year since 1982 in order to reveal the changing face of Greek Australians.
A new 2022 revised reprint of Greek Cafés & Milk Bars of Australia will also be available for purchase at the event.
Full event details:
Where: Hellenic Club of Canberra, Apollo Room, 1 Matilda Street, Woden, ACT.
“I have decided that it is time for my parliamentary journey to end” – With these words the former conservative Prime Minister of Greece, Kostas Karamanlis, announced on Tuesday he will not take part in the country’s next general elections.
In a statement, Karamanlis highlighted his support for the party he served for decades and said: “I always support the New Democracy government, [and] the party founded by Konstantinos Karamanlis which I have served continuously for almost half a century.”
Current Prime Minister of Greece, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, thanked Mr Karamanlis for his service.
“Personally, I do not forget that under his party leadership I joined politics,” Mitsotakis said.
“I know that he always has New Democracy in his heart. Much more so today, when the turning point in his own multi-year journey coincides with the opening of new and optimistic horizons for our country and our party.”
Karamanlis’ first parliament election with New Democracy came in 1989 for Thessaloniki. He served as the conservative party’s premier in 2004-2009.
Father Nicholas Tsouloukidis, the founding parish priest at St Ioannis Greek Orthodox church in the Sydney suburb of Parramatta, passed away on Tuesday, February 21.
A trisagion service will take place on Tuesday, February 28 at 6.30pm at St Ioannis in Parramatta. The funeral service will take place on Wednesday, March 1 at 11am at the same church and will be presided over by Archbishop Makarios of Australia. Father Nicholas will be buried at Rookwood Cemetery.
Father Nicholas served the Parish and Community of St Ioannis Parramatta for nearly 50 years from its inception in 1960.
Father Nicholas was well known for greeting everyone by name and also previously served at the Central Offices of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Australia as secretary.
Greece’s Foreign Minister, Nikos Dendias, welcomed US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, to Athens on Tuesday and held talks on defence, relations with Turkey, the Ukraine crisis and energy.
Dendias and Blinken also launched the start of the 4th Greece-US Strategic Dialogue, and in joint statements on Tuesday both leaders stressed that relations between Greece and the US have reached the highest level.
“The Strategic Dialogue concerns seven important areas. It is tangible proof of the dynamics of Greece’s relations with the US,” Dendias said.
The solid basis of 🇬🇷 🇺🇸relations is our shared principles & values: freedom, democracy, human rights, our commitment to International Law and the principles of the UN Charter, but also the dynamic presence of the 🇬🇷 Diaspora in the US (from joint statements with @SecBlinken). pic.twitter.com/StG53l3kxL
“A solid basis of our bilateral relations are our common principles and values: freedom, democracy, human rights, our adherence to International Law and the principles of the United Nations Charter.”
For his part, Blinken said defence cooperation between Greece and the US “is something very important for the promotion of peace and stability throughout the region.”
In a one-on-one meeting, I discussed with the #US counterpart, @SecBlinken ways to further deepen 🇬🇷🇺🇸 strategic cooperation bilaterally & within multilateral schemes and exchanged views on regional & international developments (1/2). pic.twitter.com/zoq4PGjYav
The US Secretary of State also thanked Greece for its immediate support to victims of Turkey’s earthquake this month. He underlined that the US will continue to work with Greece and Turkey to resolve issues diplomatically.
It’s Day 8 of the Appeal to save the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre (ASRC), and Kon Karapanagiotidis is working 18-hour days. Hustling. On the phone. On social media. Speaking to the press. Boosting the morale of his workforce. And continuing the day-to-day business at the centre which began as a foodbank and has branched out as a one-stop shop for hope with legal advice, health care, employment, housing and any form of humanitarian aid for asylum seekers and refugees.
Former prime minister Scott Morrison’s policies left the ASRC scrambling to offer aid to international students, asylum seekers and refugees in limbo during lockdown.
“We had to triple our programs. Almost 2.5 more every year was spent during the pandemic on food, on housing, on medicine,” Mr Karapanagiotidis said, while pointing to a 45 percent drop in people’s donations and urging people to donate to the ASRC’s appeal.
“As an independent human rights charter, we rely on our savings, but savings will only take you so far.
“If we can’t fulfil our obligations to our staff and we can’t find a way to raise that money, then we would have to shut our doors, as precious as this organisation is. That’s it.”
Those who think that Mr Karapanagiotidis is gunning for an impossible target would do well to remember the ASRC’s history – born from the impossible.
Mr Karapanagiotidis was a 28-year-old welfare studies teacher when he founded the organisation. It was created when he was unable to find not-for-profit organisations willing to take on his TAFE students for six-week placements.
What began as a TAFE project for 40 students has grown to have more than 100 permanent staff members and 1,100 volunteers. And the ASRC has helped thousands – 7,000 people per year.
Speaking on Teams from the ASRC’s Footscray facilities, the wall behind him is lilac but there is nothing pastel about Mr Karapanagiotidis, who jumps out larger-than-life through my computer screen, guns blazing when it comes to protecting the vulnerable.
It’s personal.
As part-Pontian, he carries the history of coming from a line of outcasts. But there was also his own working-class upbringing, and he urges Greeks to remember where they came from while lamenting that Greek Australians are not stepping up to help as much as they should be.
“The trauma of immigration has made so many of us so terrified that we slowly erase our stories and traditions so that we can forget,” he said. “So many of us are successful and we somehow think we did it ourselves. ‘No, you did it because your parents worked until their hands bled. On their backs’.”
His cookbook, titled Philoxenia, apart from raising money for the ASRC, is to save the stories through his mother’s recipes.
“I lost my father so young, and I didn’t want to lose these stories,” he said. “It’s a cookbook but it is a lot more than that. What I want to do is to start a conversation.”
He asks people to remember where they came from, to remember the previous generation and what they went through and to “do three things.”
Mr Karapanagiotidis urges people to 1. “Give if you can”; 2. “If you’re in Melbourne, come and volunteer with us”; and 3. “put pressure on your local member of government, and use your voice to ask why Australia isn’t doing enough to help people.”
Mr Karapanagiotidis practices what he preaches. He has already given $30,000 of his own money and is waiting for the cookbook sales to inject much needed funds to the ASRC.
“I’m hoping I can raise another $50,000 in sales if all goes well,” he said.
Despite being on the brink of closure, Mr Karapanagiotidis does not want a cent of federal government money “on principle.”
“Let me give you an example. Last week, we were one of the leading voices in a number of issues,” he said, rattling off a list of federal government decisions on which the ASRC took a stand, including the government trying to turn a federal court decision for the immediate redetention of 100 people or refusing to commit for the closure of the Austral detention centre.
“We are independent. That’s our power. That’s why people trust us. We’re not in the pocket of any political party, or any religious group. That’s where our credibility comes from. That’s how we change things.
“What’s the point of surviving if you can’t change things.”
And he plans to survive and is already looking to the next steps once this crisis is over. He points to hopes for a global work network and to connect with Greece. “It’s the same issues. It’s the same crisis,” he said.
Find out more about how you can help the ASRC here.
The Norwood Greek Festival was held by the Greek Orthodox Community and Parish of Prophet Elias Norwood on Saturday, February 18, in the eastern suburbs of Adelaide, South Australia.
The festival is an annual tradition and one of the largest Greek and multicultural festivals in Adelaide.
Greek dancing at Norwood Greek Festival in Adelaide, South Australia. Photo: Jing Lee MP / Facebook.
The festival attracted a record crowd on the day and received support from many dignitaries and parliamentary colleagues.
In attendance was SA Premier Peter Malinauskas; Leader of the SA Liberal Party, David Speirs MP; Member for Dunstan, Steven Marshall MP; Member for Hartley, Vincent Tarzia MP; Member for Bragg, Jack Batty MP; Federal Member for Sturt, James Stevens MP; and President of the Norwood Parish, Andrew Psaromatis, among many others.
The Norwood Greek Cultural Festival celebrates the amazing cultural heritage of one our proudest multicultural communities. Although a relatively young festival it has taken many more years of dedication from the Prophet of Elias community to make it the success it is today. pic.twitter.com/XeByfHqKrJ
In a Twitter post, the SA Premier praised the volunteers and Norwood Parish for their dedication to the festival.
“The Norwood Greek Cultural Festival celebrates the amazing cultural heritage of one our proudest multicultural communities,” Mr Malinauskas said.
“Although a relatively young festival it has taken many more years of dedication from the Prophet of Elias community to make it the success it is today,” the Premier’s post read.
The festival included Greek food, performances from the Prophet Elias Dance Group and dance groups from the Ukrainian (SLAVA) and Messinian communities.
Silicosis is an incurable, long-term lung disease acquired from inhaling dust from the cutting of engineered stone. The disease is caused by inhaling the fine dust, crystalline silica, which is the material used to make artificial stone benchtops.
The disease has been put in the spotlight recently following an investigation by TheSydney Morning Herald,TheAge and 60 Minutes into Australia’s work, health and safety standards.
Sydney lawyer Gary Koutzoumis tells The Greek Herald he has clients who have contracted silicosis from working with stone benchtops and are seeking compensation to assist with medical bills.
“It’s a silent killer,” Mr Koutzoumis said. “It’s destroying young families.”
Mr Koutzoumis said silicosis symptoms don’t show immediately and there needs to be a 10 percent permanent impact for clients to seek legal action. He recommends regular check-ups and suggests using iCare who offer free lung screenings.
“The regulators are failing. They are perhaps not doing what they are supposed to be doing. They have a lot to be answerable for,” Mr Koutzoumis said.
“While companies need to take extraordinary measures to ensure the safety of their workers by following NSW regulations, the regulator is not policing it and not enforcing it.”
According to The Sydney Morning Herald, there is a code of practice, a reduction in the workplace exposure standard for the amount of crystalline silica in the air, and the dry cutting of engineered stone has been banned in most states.
But a mass of notices and complaints lodged with SafeWork NSW in the past two years suggests little or no improvement in compliance.
A study into silicosis by Curtin University estimates there are more than 275,000 workers, including miners, contractors, construction workers, stone masons and tunnellers exposed to high levels of crystalline silica which is carcinogenic. Commissioned by the ACTU, the study predicts up to 103,000 workers will be diagnosed with silicosis.
Sophie Cotsis, the NSW opposition work health and safety spokeswoman, led the charge for an inquiry into SafeWork NSW late last year. She wants ‘immediate action’ to save Australians with silicosis.
“The regulator goes in and does nothing. This has to change, this culture has to change,” she told the SMH. “They are risking thousands of people’s lives by not taking immediate action.”
Unions are joining forces to lobby the federal government to ban engineered stone by July 2024. The CFMEU said if the government does not act, it will ban its members from working with it.
Sydney Olympic defeated Sydney FC 3-2 on Sunday afternoon away at Valentine Sports Park to pick up their third win in as many National Premier League NSW Men’s games.
The away side opened the scoring with a direct piece of play, which saw Adam Parkhouse’s shot off a ball in behind parried into the path of Darcy Burgess, who converted into the opening net.
Photo: Chris Paraskevas.
Sydney FC responded in the 34th minute was a brilliant one two between Clayton Taylor and Alen Harbas saw the former drive into the box and convert with his left foot from an acute angle.
Photo: Takis Triadafillou
Sydney Olympic took the lead once more in the 75th minute as Burgess made it a brace for himself with a stunning strike as he capitalised on a bouncing ball in the box, converting it into the top left corner with class and composure.
Photo: Takis Triadafillou
O’Donovan added a third with a stunning strike into the top left former nine minutes later, but Sydney clawed one back in the 87th minute off a clinical Luka Smyth penalty.
However, Sydney FC couldn’t find another goal, and Sydney Olympic kept their winning run intact.
