Hi Mina! 

No worries, it sounded to me that Glavkos as well said that plenty of things are currently happening in Greece and that he was also going on strike.

Mina, when reading your email two aspects are very striking to me;
* The effort, bravery and strength coming from you in this struggle with the parliament and politics in general in Greece. I am deeply impressed and touched.
* Your hope which seems intact and that you most hopefully can feed from it getting energy and seeing a brighter future. This brings much inspiration and is a reminder of how important hope for the future is in situations such as this.

I am happy to hear you're enjoying the efforts that plenty of people have put down in editing the pages about their education work on outreach. I am myself moved by the extent to people's work, dedication and engagement in using Wikipedia (and other Wikimedia projects) in education.

I can only agree with you, we simply cannot function in isolation, what we do is affected by (and hopefully does affect as well) occurrences all over the world, both in windows of opportunity and struggles. I'm sad to hear about the abolishment of the informatics class and that so few people in positions that can make a difference have responded to this issue. 

Mina, thank you for sharing all of this.

/ sophie 





2013/9/26 Mina Theofilatou <theoth@otenet.gr>
Hi Sophie and all
 
A late reply to an interesting message... sorry for the delay, I've been terribly caught up in the outrageous measures that were approved by Parliament in the recent law governing Upper Secondary Education. Teachers were on strike all of last week and up to yesterday, well actually I'm one of the few that held out the whole time (not that I have my financial issues settled but I will sacrifice wages to protest against thousands of teachers having already been laid off: I know my turn will come soon, the government is strangling all of lower to middle-class Greek society plus now we have a fascism trend on our hands too).
 
No need to get into more tragic details of everyday life in Greece in the EU, it's all over international news anyway.
 
I really want to send a heartfelt "THANK YOU" for the work you and the other editors have done on this page: https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Education_Portal/Projects_and_Programs/Greece
 
I am particularly pleased that my eye-witness account of the situation in Greek education has been included as an external link. In appreciation that Wikimedia is not an Foundation isolated from important social issues especially where education is involved,  I have added a link to another blog post about ICT education in Greece: unfortunately the Informatics class was indeed abolished from University entry curriculum, which was described as a "Giant Step Backward" by the Computer Science Teachers' Association  in New York, NY (scroll down to Aug. 26). My blog post however does include around 15 external links (once a citation advocate, always a citation advocate!) so it's not just me saying these things. Oh and by the way, the CSTA and the EATCS (European Association for Theoretical Computer Science)  were the only two replies I got to the letter: no reply from the recipient  or CC'ed EU officials and agencies whatsoever.
 
I also did some editing work on the way...:)
 
 
Thanks and keep up the great work!
 
Mina
 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, September 20, 2013 7:45 PM
Subject: [Wikimedia Education] A page on outreach for each country'seducational activities

Hi all lovely people! 

Just to let you know (and please do edit if something is missing or is incorrect) there are pages for each country which can be found here;


I know some of you have been editing and adding already, thank you for that! The two main reasons for having these pages are;

* For all of us to quickly see what is going on in education around the world 
* For you to hopefully be inspired by what others are taking on in education

And of course, to feel great pride of all the work that is currently being done!


 
Be Bold! 
Sophie Österberg  
sosterberg@wikimedia.org


Every single contribution to Wikipedia is a gift of free knowledge to humanity. 

_______________________________________________
Education mailing list
Education@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/education


_______________________________________________
Education mailing list
Education@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/education




--
Be Bold! 
Sophie Österberg  
sosterberg@wikimedia.org


Every single contribution to Wikipedia is a gift of free knowledge to humanity.