NEVER ENOUGH FOR CHILDREN

Are you sure that you are fully aware of things going on in the world?

Greetings from Athens.

My name is Kristina, and I am a 4-th year student of Lomonosov Moscow State University, Journalism Department. Under some magical, unknown for me circumstances I happened to come in January 2016 in Athens to study as an Erasmus student at Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences and which occured to be my life’s turning point in some ways.

The time I was preparing for my exchange-semester-trip in Russia, there were a dozen times when people who had learnt about me going to Greece seemed a bit surprised. Though they usually did not express their thoughts, it was not so difficult to read this question from their faces: “Are you sure that you are fully aware of the situation in the country where you are going (meaning “millions of refugee invasion” I suppose)?”.

Today, after 5 months of staying in Athens, I have a question for those people: “And are YOU sure that YOU ARE FULLY AWARE of the situation going on here?”. Actually, I even can answer for them, — “Absolutely not”. If you don’t belong to any of international refugee organisation, you don’t have ANY IDEA of what is going on here.

And this is the 100 percents’ STOP-FACTOR which keeps millions of good people’s intentions addressed to solve social problems out of implementation. Below I will explan why.

In the middle of my studying semester at Panteion my best friend from Russia was going to come in Athens to visit me. I was extremely happy about this because I missed her very much. I started to make plans for her every day being here, but all of a sudden she told me that her trip was not going to happen. And the reason was her mum who was scared about her daughter who might was killed by refugees that have invaded Greece according to mmmedia…

All in all, my friend came and we spent amazing time together, but the thing that has been giving no peace to me since that time is consciousness that MOSTLY, people are not aware or have a wrong idea of the situations that exist in the world. And the responsibility for such processes nowadays, I tend to think, rests with this so-called objective watchdog Media.

However, it is not about accusations. Actually, I hate them. I am for taking responsibilities for everything happening around on people themselves, on myself. So let’s better be introduced with some facts I will post below.

According to the United Nations more than 60 million people have been forcibly displaced from their homes — half of them are under the age of 18.

On average, conflicts in low-income countries last about 12 years and displacement due to conflict lasts an average of 17 years. Thus, such situations can completely destroy the one opportunity for a basic education for millions of children.

According to the Overseas Development Institute (ODI), in 2015 less than 2% of all humanitarian aid went to education.

And to be more concrete, more than 25000 refugee children stranded right now in Greece are at a real risk of becoming lost generation without education.

And It is just a part about those people who you consider as killers, invaders, beasts and whoever but not victims of the circumstances that they are not responsible for. While making a reasearch, studying the isssue of refugees, volunteering in refugee camps, playing with refugee children, talking with refugees, volunteers, representatives of different organisations in Athens, I have come up with the conception that same as YOU these people just want to have home to live quitely in love and peace with their family. They are JUST LIKE YOU and me, and everyone, with only difference — they need our help. Today. For theirs Tomorrow.

Turning back from them and the whole situation and leaving refugee children to their own fate — IT IS WE WHO ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THEM BEING GROWN AS KILLERS, BANDITS AND BEASTS.

As I tend to think best about people, I am pretty much confident that it is not our INDIFFERENCE or EGOCENTRISM that interfere us with taking action toward helping people in need, it is IGNORANCE and UNAWARENESS of situations where our help can be applied.

And we are going to change it.
Cheers!