Afksendiyos Kalangos: the Greek heart surgeon who has operated on 15,000 children for free (video)

Greek media have given Dr. Afksendiyos Kalangos many names. They have called him “the doctor of the poor,” “a saint without a halo,” “the greek heart surgeon who saves children,” “the guardian angel,” and “the doctor with the golden hands.”

But the most accurate of all the epithets should be “the greek heart surgeon who operated on 15,000 children for free.”

 

Dr. Kalangos began his career as a cardiovascular surgeon at the Geneva Medical School Hospital in Switzerland in 1993. In 1998, the philanthropic doctor founded the “Coeurs Pour Tous” (Hearts for All) foundation, and in 2002 he founded the “Kalangos Institution” for which he also serves as Chairman.

In the past ten years, he has traveled all over the world along with his medical team, performing his “art of saving the lives of children” as a Greek journalist put it. He and his crack team have traveled to a total of 25 countries, performing pro bono heart surgery on fifteen thousand children.

Dimitri Neonakis: the pilot making wishes of Canadian children come true

Dimitri Neonakis, a Greek-Canadian from Messinia who lives and works in Nova Scotia, Canada, impresses all in the local community with his inspiring way of expressing his solidarity with his fellow citizens — especially the younger ones.

Following the terrorist attacks of April, 2020 in Nova Scotia, where 22 people tragically lost their lives, Neonakis wanted to find a unique way to express his solidarity with his community.

So he decided to begin creating figures in the sky with his airplane as a way to transmit symbols and messages of solidarity in the air. After these routes are depicted on a map, they show what he says are uplifting images of hope.

Following this unusual gesture, Neonakis decided to take a further step and introduce the "Dream Wings" initiative, which gives children with mobility issues and serious health conditions the opportunity to take a once-in-a-lifetime ride on his plane.

Greek athlete Marios Giannakou carries disabled student to peak of Mount Olympus

“There is nothing more real than the dream. 09:02 am We reached the top of Greece with Eleftheria and our team,” Marios Giannakou's Instagram post read in reference to Mount Olympus.

This was the post of the long distance athlete who informed about the successful completion of, what he described a few days ago, as the most important and beautiful race of his life. He conquered the top of Mount Olympus, carrying on his back, in a specially modified backpack, 22-year-old Eleftheria Tosiou, who has mobility problems.

“There is nothing more real than a dream,” writes the athlete from Drama in northern Greece, accompanying his post a photo of himself with the young biology student on his back, the Greek flag in his hand and a wide smile of satisfaction on the faces of both.

When Eleftheria met Marios through one of their common friends, she confided in him that she wants to ascend to Mount Olympus.

Without a second thought, the Drama athlete checked the diary, studied the meteorological forecasts, organized the appropriate support team and made his young friend’s dream come true.

The mechanics of philotimo: volunteers repair cars damaged in Evia floods (video)

In early August, the Greek island of Evia was hit by a catastrophic flood that killed eight people and caused incalculable destruction. In the wake of the disaster, residents found their homes and possessions destroyed. 

They were left to wonder how they could ever recover from this catastrophe. Now, a group of mechanics from Athens has volunteered to fix vehicles that were heavily damaged in the flood as soon as they saw the aftermath of the natural disaster.

The flooding was caused by the extraordinary amounts of rainfall that fell over a relatively short period of time. While the weather forecast had called for 63 mm (2.5 inches) of rain, Evia was deluged by 300 mm (11.8 inches) in just 8 hours, making the natural disaster one of the most devastating in the region’s history.

Tragically, eight people, including one infant, lost their lives in the terrible storm. Thousands of homes on Evia were flooded with water and mud, and many cars were swept away into the sea by torrents of water.

The amount of damage left by the flood is simply unimaginable. The most heavily-impacted regions on the island were Psachna, Politika, Bourtzi, Vasilikou and Lefkandi.

Upon seeing images of the destruction left in the wake of the flood, car aficionado Vasilis Papanikitas decided to go to Evia with his friends to help the residents there. “It started when I saw the cars in Bourtzi that were destroyed. People were saying that local mechanics didn’t believe that the cars could be repaired, and they should be discarded,” he explains.

Although Papanikitas is not a professional mechanic, but a cafe owner – his ‘Cafe Racer’ is a popular spot among car aficionados, in the Athenian suburb of Kifissia – he’s happy that he has now proved them wrong.

“I really like cars and I love repairing them. I couldn’t accept that the cars couldn’t be fixed. Nearly every car can be fixed,” he stated as he cleaned car parts that had been covered in mud during the flood.

The good side of Greece radiates

Elona Angoli sewed 600 masks in Grevena. The Saabo family is doing the same in Trikala.

In every corner of Greece an "outbreak" of donations and volunteering and a strong mobilization in the battle against the coronavirus is manifesting.

Residents of Nea Filadelfeia donated more than 200 units of blood. In Agia Paraskevi, 114 units were collected. In Petrana and Kroko Kozanis, 15 and 21 units respectively.

A network of Emergency Seamstresses is created in 37 prefectures to arm the front line with 40,000 reusable masks. The volunteers of Covid-19 Response Greece design and manufacture more than 25,000 face shields. And they keep going.

Age No Problem for 84-Year-Old Cretan Going to Greek University

Dimitris Moudatsakis is another person that proves it is never too late to follow your dreams; at the age of 84 he is ready to go to university and study history and archaeology.

The Cretan man wanted to get a higher education ever since he was in grade school. However, he was forced to go to work at the age of 10. He left his village and went to Heraklion to learn the craft of bookbinding, learning the craft from his uncle.

When he finished school, he served in the army and then opened his own bookbinding business. Then he got married and raised a family, working harder to put bread on the table and send his children to university, something that he had not been able to do.

'The HOME Project' NGO is taking refugee kids off the streets of Athens (video)

Children are the silent heart of the refugee crisis. More than half of the world’s displaced population comprises minors torn from their war-ridden homelands who cross European borders in search of security and well-being. Many are unaccompanied and particularly vulnerable, prone to exploitation or violence similar to that they are fleeing. With the closure of the Greek borders, it is estimated that 2,100 children remain homeless and stranded in the country.

At the same time, an eight-year financial crisis has led to the creation of another problem in the Athenian urban landscape: numerous uninhabited and often abandoned buildings across the center of the city, in various states of continuous decay.

Where most people would detect two unrelated problems, Sofia Kouvelaki envisioned a solution that would benefit everyone. Kouvelaki is the head of the HOME Project, a nongovernmental organization that aims to provide security, support and social inclusion services to young refugees arriving in Greece. The principal tool of the initiative is the organization’s shelters: 11 formerly abandoned buildings which the initiative has rented and refurbished, converting them into welcoming homes for unaccompanied minors.

Lisa Campbell: the grandmother who took 2,000 refugees under her wing in Oinofyta

When Lisa Campbell arrived in Greece in November 2015 to help care for the flood of refugees she planned on staying for just a few weeks. She ended up running a refugee camp - until it was suddenly closed last month. What made an American Mormon grandmother of six leave behind her family and her job to deal with the chaos of Greece's refugee crisis?

Like most people in the US, I hadn't been aware of the scale of the refugee disaster until the pictures of three-year-old Alan Kurdi washed up on a beach started being shown on US news in 2015.

But it wasn't until I actually got here and saw for myself the piles of life jackets and the boats stacked on the beach that the magnitude of it really hit me.

I had taken a leave of absence from my job and planned to be in Greece for 45 days. My assumption was that I would find people who were housed, fed, and had basic services available.

That first morning on the island of Lesbos, I went out on my balcony and I could see nine boats coming across from Turkey already. You hear people say that the boats are overloaded, but to see 50 people get off of a boat that would be full with 10 is overwhelming. I can't tell you how many times people would get off the boat and literally kiss the ground. That grabs you.

Captain Kostas Prasinos: The fearless pirate of the Aegean Sea

“The sea needs to be respected otherwise you will end up a loser. I’m not afraid of the sea because I respect it. The sea and I always communicate well together,” says Koufonisi native Captain Kostas Prasinos of a lifetime spent at sea. Now 76, he has no thoughts of retiring. Prasinos, or “the pirate,” as he is affectionately known, is also fully aware that paralyzing fear can be deadly when facing wind speeds of up to 9 Beaufort.

“The boat and the sea are my life,” the old salt remarked as he launched into a description of feats that have established him as the most renowned living skipper of the Small Cyclades region.

“I was born on Koufonisi in 1941, during the German occupation. My family was poor – 13 children – and our parents had trouble raising us. I left school early. I wanted to travel from a young age,” Prasinos noted.

Stratos Papafilippou: The wonderful "Eric" of Thassos (full documentary)

"Eric" is the short documentary by Faidon Gkretsikos and Panos Tragos that tells the story of Stratos Papafilippou, the doppelgänger of football legend Eric Cantona, from the Greek island of Thassos.

In the mid-90s two English tourists told Stratos Papafilippou, the owner of a small bar in Potamia, Thassos, that he bore a striking resemblance to the legendary French footballer Eric Cantona. 

Stratos did not know who Cantona was but he figured it could be a good business opportunity. So he cut his hair, put on a Manchester United jersey, and began appearing in public as "Eric Cantona in the flesh," determined to one day meet the real Cantona in person.

Vaggelis Chatzis: The Incredible Story of the Only One-Armed Boxer in the World (videos)

The ultimate underdog story of a Greek who lost his right arm and went on to become the only one-armed boxer in the world, titled “The Greek”, will be premiering at this year’s LA Greek Film Festival on Thursday June 8.

Created by Anastasios Papapostolou, the 26 minute-long documentary follows the life of Greek boxer Vaggelis “Cobra” Chatzis. The Greek professional fighter struggled through a tough upbringing and the physical challenge of only having one arm to pursue a path in the world of boxing. Today, Chatzis is recognized as the only one-armed competing boxer in the world.

Papapostolou opened up about his inspiration for filming the documentary “The Greek”, saying “I felt it was the most inspiring underdog story I had stumbled upon during my 15 years in journalism.”

Refugees Got Talent (video)

"In Idomeni, there were so many talented people," says Mahmoud Abdalrhim, a 25-year-old former law student from Aleppo, Syria. "We wanted to show the Europeans that refugees are talented and educated, not ignorant. [Europeans] were seeing us through a certain lens - describing us as numbers, while politicians were using us as bargaining chips. Through our videos, we wanted to show people that we are just like them."

Mahmoud fled Syria after the army tried to force him to join the fighting. He took a boat from Turkey to Lesbos, hoping to make his way to Germany, where his fiancee lives. But Mahmoud got stranded in Idomeni, a town on the Greek-FYROM border which, until May 2016, was the site of Europe's largest informal refugee camp, holding about 8,000 refugees when Greek police started clearing the camp on May 24, 2016.

Mahmoud was moved to a new camp in Oraiokastro, together with his three friends - Basil, Sameer and Mustafa, the cofounders of the satirical online television channel refugees.tv. After initial hopes of a speedy relocation to other European countries, the mood among the camp's residents soured as time passed and the authorities were unable to offer any clarity about how long they would remain in Oraiokastro.

That's when Mahmoud, Basil, Sameer and Mustafa decided to organise a talent show.
"We wanted the residents of the camp to forget their worries," says Mahmoud.

Takes a village: ‘Greek Freak’ got many assists growing up

He was just a scrawny, hungry kid, the son of migrants from Nigeria, trying to survive in Sepolia, a modest Athens neighborhood.

The club coach who spotted 13-year-old Giannis Antetokounmpo and his brother kicking a soccer ball around a neighborhood field says the NBA All-Star grew up in constant fear of the police, and of being deported.

At that time, Antetokounmpo had only dabbled in basketball and was mostly interested in soccer. "He could not make a layup and he could not dribble," Spiros Velliniatis said.

But the teenager's character impressed Velliniatis, with a determination and toughness that showed through. "He was a champion before he was a basketball player," Velliniatis said.

...And now they offer bags of clothes to the next generation of migrants and refugees

Twenty years ago she and her husband walked across the border from Albania with their two very young children to get away from the violence and desperation in their country.

They had a few relatives already in Greece but essentially they started from scratch, setting up a home.  They worked hard, often two different jobs a day.  They lived very simply.  They saved. 

When they could they sent some money and clothes back to family in Albania.  They worked.  Their children went to Greek school, became Greek.  They worked.  They sent their children to university.  They worked.  They work.  Rarely even a coffee out… 

Twenty years ago she and her husband walked across the border.

And now they offer bags of clothes to the next generation of migrants and refugees.  

* Thank you anonymous for sharing this story.

Archaeological Museum show sheds light on WWII efforts to salvage priceless antiquities (photos)

The National Archaeological Museum of Athens is hosting a small exhibition – running beside a big show commemorating its 150th anniversary – to acquaint the public with the efforts of archaeologists, guards, technical staff and volunteers during World War II to hide and preserve its priceless collections from widespread looting by occupying forces. The exhibition runs through December 8 in the museum's courtyard cafe.

A month after Greece became embroiled in war with Italy – nixing Mussolini’s ultimatum issued on October 28, 1940 – every museum in the country received a letter from the government giving detailed instructions as to how they were to hide their treasures from the invaders. One of the proposals was to pack the exhibits in crates, hidden under sandbags. The other, which was more widely applied, involved burying the artifacts under museum floors, in courtyards and stowing them in the basements of any state institution.

The exhibition, which has just opened, consists of 24 photographs from the museum’s archive showing scenes from those fraught days.

Everyday Heroes: Meet the Greek Islanders Nominated for Nobel Prize (video)

LESBOS, Greece — Sub-zero temperatures and ice-cold waters haven't stopped tens of thousands of migrants from landing on the shores of this tiny Greek island this winter — though many have died trying.

The locals of Lesbos have been flung into the roles of rescuers and receivers. 

Their courage, compassion and self-sacrifice has inspired a Nobel Peace Prize nomination. 

Here are some of their stories.

The fisherman

Thanos Marmarinos has traded fishing time for towing in boats full of desperate migrants, saving scores from the frigid sea.

"One boat was filling with water — there were 18 children in it, including a three-month-old baby. If we hadn't been there, they'd have drowned," the 62-year-old said.

Remembering the "OXI" Day - 28 October 1940 (video)

 

Greeks connect with refugees in search of accommodation with help from NGO

On the second floor of an apartment block in a quiet part of Halandri, a suburb of northern Athens, Adel and Chara are ready to welcome new members into their family – as they like to put it. They had been mulling the idea of providing temporary housing to refugees in Greece for a while, but the missing link was that of actually establishing contact with their future housemates.

The matter was solved on the Internet, through the discovery of Refugees Welcome, a newly established nongovernmental organization that went into operation for the first time in Germany in November in 2014. Refugees Welcome officially started operating in Greece a few days ago (www.refugees-welcome.gr).

Migrant boat crisis: the story of the Greek hero on the beach

It was an image that came to symbolise desperation and valour: the desperation of those who will take on the sea – and the men who ferry human cargo across it – to flee the ills that cannot keep them in their own countries. And the valour of those on Europe’s southern shores who rush to save them when tragedy strikes.

Last week on the island of Rhodes, war, repression, dictatorship in distant Eritrea were far from the mind of army sergeant Antonis Deligiorgis. The world inhabited by Wegasi Nebiat, a 24-year-old Eritrean in the cabin of a yacht sailing towards the isle, was still far away.

Celtic fan Jay Beatty invited to Greece for award

Jay Beatty, the little Celtic fan who became an internet hit when he was seen on social media sites cheering on his hero Georgios Samaras in the World Cup, has been invited to Greece to pick up a top sports award.

Jay - who has Down’s syndrome - travelled from his home in County Armagh, Northern Ireland to watch the striker as he played his final game for the club at the end of last season and Samaras was delighted to have him there cheering him on.