Panagiota Diamanti, president of the AMKE “New Life in the Village”, attempted to give a different dimension to the demographic problem at the conference “Low Birth Rate & Family: Composing Solutions for the Demographic Problem” and in the section “What must change and the support of the Greek periphery as a solution to the Demographic issue”.
The conference was organized by the Media2day Group, on the initiative of Euro2day.gr, Iatronet.gr and Mama365.gr and under the auspices of the Region of Attica.
The initiative “New Life in the Village” aims at the revitalization of the Greek countryside, strengthening the return of residents and the settlement of new people in villages. It promotes local development, entrepreneurship, the utilization of real estate, and the creation of conditions for a sustainable and active life in the periphery.
Ms. Diamanti focused on the issue of desertification of the countryside and as she explained “what we identified is that ultimately the problem is not that we must persuade families to return to the province.
The problem is that we must remove the obstacles that exist. And so we acted within the framework of the family. That is, the main pillars we deal with concern finding housing for families”.
Because -as she pointed out- in the province it is not easy to find housing, such as for example by searching on the internet.
According to her, for a residence to be safe, legal, and able to be rented with everything needed is the one part.
The others are work for the parents, opportunities for the children, social services, a functioning school, health, roads, afternoon activities.
“Within two years we supported 14 families and 40 children relocated to the province, to Fourna Evrytania, to Zitsa Ioannina, to Kokkino Boeotia and now with Eurobank we have the joy of participating in the project in northern Evros and there to strengthen not one village.
After very serious thought on this matter we decided to create a network of villages in the area, in the Municipality of Orestiada, where all the villages enter the process of welcoming families when exactly these conditions I told you about are met, in order for the schools of the area and these communities to be supported. Because one, two, three children may not be a significant number for Athens, but three children may keep a school open, may keep a kindergarten open and that is very important”.
She then explained that Eurobank will support each family that chooses to take this step with 5,000 euros, so that the obstacle of moving, the first rents, the first expenses, which is very important, may be removed.
“And we recorded the available jobs, the available residences and everything a family needs and thinks that "I want to take the step to go to the province, but where will I work, where will I stay, what will I do there, who will be waiting for me"”.
In addition, Ms. Diamanti highlighted how important cooperation is:
“Above all, what is important is synergy, cooperation. No one can do it alone, neither the social body, nor the private business, nor even often can the Municipality act alone. This synergy should bring us the results and we already have five families waiting for Evros. Three have already started the procedures through New Life in the Village, they have entered into the discussion procedures”, she added.