Coming originally from Greece, I’ve been living in Manchester two years now and I have to admit that I couldn’t get the real feeling of the situation back home. I couldn’t realize how harsh the austerity measures are on people struggling to support their families! Every time I would visit Greece for a couple of weeks, I would be shocked by the big changes around me that media tend to ignore as they usually focus on the political instability and the IMF rather than their impact on people’s lives!

Six months ago, I went back to do research with an NGO in Athens, the city I studied and lived for 7 years! The day I arrived, I decided to take a walk around the city center as I used to do when I was living there. I always enjoyed walking in these areas that were full of history since I believe these are the only places someone could get the real sense of the city.  

I started wandering around the city center, with a nostalgic smile, trying to grasp everything I had missed all this time being away, but what actually replaced the colorful center of Athens was misery and poverty…  In the most central and commercial streets of the city, all I could see was stores forced to down shutters. Just opposite the National Technical University of Athens, four stores in a row were closed and homeless people were sleeping in the street in front of the stores’ entrances!

Walking up towards my old school, University of Athens, I got to see the most shocking pictures that will follow me for life. Beggars were everywhere asking not for money but for food instead, looking even in the garbage to find anything they could eat. I went in a bakery and one of them followed me in, so I asked the baker to give him a loaf of bread and I would pay for it. He did as I said and this poor man, who was probably in his 20s, was thanking me as I gave him gold! In the past, if someone would ask for money and you gave him food he would probably swear at you!

Unfortunately, this is not happening only in the center of Athens but it can be encountered everywhere in Greece.  With more than 1/3 of Greeks being below poverty line and our society also bleeding with high youth unemployment rates (58%), students not being able to continue their studies due to their families’ financial problems, with qualified people leaving the country in order to find a job.

The result is that the older generations, who have worked in all their lives and paid their taxes, are now looking for food in the leftovers of open markets and in the same time they are required to support not only their families but also their children’s families. After the pension cuts and the financial measures the suicide rates and the use of anti-depressants have increased in the country. A shocking incident for Greeks was the suicide note of a 77 year old man who confessed he couldn't bear to look his children in the eye any more as he was not able to support them financially.

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