Greek village welcomes first settlers with children (video)

The Greek mountain village of Fourna in Evrytania welcomes a family with six children for permanent residence and is waiting for others.

She is in dire straits, under threat of closing the only school due to lack of childrenbecause there are only 118 residents in this beautiful village, tells GreekReporter: In desperation, authorities posted a notice on Facebook asking about moving families with childrenThe settlers were offered free housing and various employment prospects.

The first response came almost immediately after it was published on August 13, and now the village is welcoming a family with six children. Stefanos Kostopoulos and Vasiliki Emmanouil have five boys and one girl, all of school age.

The leader of the initiative to settle Fourna with families with children is the village priest, Father Konstantinos. His assistant is the village school teacher, Panagiota Diamanti. She posted an ad and acted as a guide to Fourna and the surrounding area for the arriving family.

Fourna is a beautiful Greek village built at an altitude of 840 meters on a tributary of the Fourniotikos River and surrounded by a fir forest. It is located in Central Greece, in the municipality of Karpenisi, and the city is 40 kilometers away.

Stefanos and Vasiliki's family heard about the advert from a relative, it was posted on August 13, just before the feast of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary. On August 16, Vasiliki contacted the village teacher, asking for a tour of the area and the house they would be given. The family liked it and decided to move. Father Constantinos told the new arrivals that it was God's will for them to move, as the negotiations took place on the holy day of August 15.

The family had previously tried their luck in Germany, where they lived from 2017 to 2020. After they returned to Greece, a relative told Stefanos about a good job in Germany, and this time Stefanos went alone. However, when they heard about the opportunity to start a new life in this hospitable Greek village, they did not think twice.

Stefanos says he wanted his children to grow up in a better environment than the city. In Fourna they found the people very friendly and welcoming, the air exceptionally clean and the scenery beautiful.

As for employment prospects, Stefanos believes that there are vacancies in the municipality and the region. Vasiliki is a hairdresser and hopes to become one in the village.

More families with children are set to move to a sparsely populated and impoverished Greek village. A teacher in Fourna says 100 families have already expressed interest in moving. For now, they are waiting for two more families to arrive to settle in – one with four children and the other with seven.

Diamanti returned to her home village from the city to become a teacher at the village school and wants to see Fourna come to life. Of course, such efforts require money. She said that Greeks in the US diaspora have contributed financially to the village school and that they are expecting more donations.

Lawyers in the Greek village are currently working on legal procedures so that donations can help the families who will be settling. Diamanti invites people to donate money and help in any way they can. There are sponsors who send money and food, and a tutoring school in Kifissia has offered free online language lessons for children.

Source link