Deaths overtook births in Greece – now villages are beginning to vanish

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  • Fourna, a small, distant village in central Greece, was going through demographic collapse as a consequence of its ageing inhabitants and low start charge.
  • A partnership between the native schoolteacher and the village priest launched a marketing campaign providing monetary incentives and help to draw households to relocate to Fourna.
  • The marketing campaign has been profitable, with two households already moved in, 5 extra on a ready checklist, and a whole lot of inquiries, leading to a major enhance within the variety of youngsters attending the native college.
  • This initiative comes amidst a broader demographic disaster in Greece, with an ageing inhabitants and declining start charges, prompting authorities intervention and collaboration with the Orthodox Church to advertise household life.
  • The success of Fourna’s marketing campaign has served for instance for different struggling villages in Greece, providing a possible mannequin for revitalizing rural communities.

Fourna, dwelling to 180 folks and hidden within the mountains of central Greece, is a vanishing village that’s decided to maintain its place on the map.

A winding four-hour drive from Athens, it enjoys close to whole silence, periodically damaged by church bells and howling canine. Aged residents measure the village’s probabilities of survival by the variety of youngsters enrolled on the native major college.

Final 12 months, there have been solely two.

However Fourna’s fortunes have been reversed by an unlikely and tireless partnership. The native schoolteacher, a Ph.D. scholar learning synthetic intelligence, discovered widespread trigger with the Rev. Constantine Dousikos, a burly Orthodox priest and former lumber machine operator who was ordained shortly earlier than turning 50.

They began a despair-fueled marketing campaign to draw households to Fourna, providing settling-in cash raised from non-public donations and municipal applications.

It’s working: Two households have moved to the village, 5 extra are on a 2025 wait checklist, and a whole lot of others have made inquiries. Eight youngsters now attend elementary courses.

Fourna village stands in central Greece, Monday, Nov. 25

Fourna village stands in central Greece, Monday, Nov. 25 (Copyright 2024 The Related Press. All rights reserved)

Dousikos, equally comfortable behind the wheel of his pickup or in entrance of the church altar, says the initiative was partly impressed by calls from the Orthodox church hierarchy urging clergy to advertise household life.

“I feel we did the apparent factor: Assist the folks right here preserve our village alive,” he says, standing within the Church of Transfiguration of Christ on the principle sq.. “In fact, village life is just not for everybody. You have to be good at guide work.”

A map of Fourna:

Greece has one of many world’s oldest populations with 23% aged 65 or older in 2023, in line with World Financial institution information. The central Greek area of Evrytania, dwelling to Fourna, faces low start charges and rural depopulation, with a mean age of 56.2 – one of many three highest within the European Union.

Panagiota Diamanti, Fourna’s solely elementary schoolteacher and co-founder of the household marketing campaign “New Life within the Village,” says the urgency of the scenario is palpable.

“If the children don’t come, the trainer will get transferred and the college will shut. And a closed college won’t ever reopen,” she says. “We want daring motion.”

Locals leave the church after a liturgy in Fourna village, central Greece

Locals go away the church after a liturgy in Fourna village, central Greece (Copyright 2024 The Related Press. All rights reserved)

Greater than 200 publicly run faculties and kindergartens have been shut down throughout Greece within the present college 12 months as a consequence of low enrollment, many in distant components of the nation with sparse populations as a consequence of its mountainous mainland terrain and quite a few small islands.

A number of native authorities have reached out to the Fourna marketing campaign, and requested Diamanti to assist them begin the same program.

After class, she joins her eight college students in a sport of dodgeball on the college yard which overlooks Evrytania’s jagged mountains. The children take pleasure in a local-celebrity standing; their birthdays are sometimes celebrated in the principle village sq..

Vassiliki Emmanouil relocated to Fourna together with her six youngsters – 5 sons and a daughter – and says she has been showered with kindness. Village residents go away meals exterior her door in a single day and are encouraging her to restart an previous bakery when her husband returns from a spell of labor in Germany.

“I’ve been right here for almost three months, and I might be ungrateful to say I’ve struggled,” Emmanouil says. “The native priest and his spouse deal with me as if I’m a part of their household. The complete village has been by our aspect, from providing each day necessities to emotional help.”

Student Panagiotis leaves the primary school in Fourna village

Scholar Panagiotis leaves the first college in Fourna village (Copyright 2024 The Related Press. All rights reserved)

Deaths overtook annual births in Greece in 2010 because the nation sank right into a extreme monetary disaster and the numbers have steadily worsened since then, reaching nearly double the start stage in 2022.

The conservative authorities final 12 months created a ministry of household and social cohesion. It has elevated household advantages within the 2025 funds and reached out to the Orthodox Church for assist.

Final 12 months, the church’s governing Holy Synod issued a round that was learn out in any respect of Greece’s Orthodox church buildings, arguing that monetary incentives is not going to be sufficient to reverse the dire demographic traits.

“Specialists suggest varied options to handle the problem, emphasizing its vital social, financial, and geopolitical implications,” the message mentioned.

“The Church underscores the non secular dimension of household life, advocating for unity, love, and the creation of households as a testomony to divine goal,” it added. “Kids, thought of items from God, convey that means to life and symbolize hope and renewal.”

Rev. Constantine Dousikos, left, and Father Ilarion patronize a cafe in Fourna village,

Rev. Constantine Dousikos, left, and Father Ilarion patronize a restaurant in Fourna village, (Copyright 2024 The Related Press. All rights reserved)

For Fourna’s residents, even church attendance is tied to village survival. Two dozen church buildings within the space stay empty many of the 12 months, however are effectively maintained and open for vital dates on the spiritual calendar.

The looks of kids in church and on the village’s long-quieted streets caught most residents off guard.

“In the beginning, I by no means thought households would come to reside right here. It’s a distant village, very small, with out a lot right here,” native enterprise proprietor Giorgos Vassilikoudis mentioned.

“However to my shock, households did come they usually’re pleased,” mentioned Vassilikoudis, who runs a restaurant and guesthouse. “It’s superb for the village and for individuals who have retailers and companies. For different villages, it serves for instance. It’s a superb begin.”


#Deaths #overtook #births #Greece #villages #beginning #vanish


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#Deaths #overtook #births #Greece #villages #beginning #vanish


Derek Gatopoulos and Thanassis Stavrakis , 2024-12-11 09:53:00

Mass evacuation of Philippine villages underway after a short however main volcanic eruption


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About 87,000 folks have been being evacuated in a central Philippine area Tuesday a day after a volcano briefly erupted with a towering ash plume and superhot streams of gasoline and particles hurtling down its western slopes.

The newest eruption of Mount Kanlaon on central Negros island didn’t trigger any quick casualties, however the alert stage was raised one stage, indicating additional and extra explosive eruptions could happen.

Volcanic ash fell on a large space, together with Vintage province, greater than 200 kilometers (124 miles) throughout seawaters west of the volcano, obscuring visibility and posing well being dangers, Philippine chief volcanologist Teresito Bacolcol and different officers mentioned by phone.

Not less than six home flights and a flight certain for Singapore have been canceled and two native flights have been diverted within the area Monday and Tuesday attributable to Kanlaon’s eruption, based on the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines.

The mass evacuations have been being carried out urgently in cities and villages nearest the western and southern slopes of Kanlaon which have been blanketed by its ash, together with in La Castellana city in Negros Occidental the place almost 47,000 folks must be evacuated out of a 6-kilometer (3.7-mile) hazard zone, the Workplace of Civil Protection mentioned.

Greater than 6,000 have moved to evacuation facilities except for those that have quickly transferred to the houses of family in La Castellana by Tuesday morning, the city’s mayor, Rhumyla Mangilimutan, instructed The Related Press by phone.

Catastrophe-response contingents have been quickly establishing evacuation facilities and looking for provides of face masks, meals and hygiene packs forward of the Christmas season, historically a peak time for vacation journey and household celebrations within the largely Roman Catholic nation.

Authorities additionally shut colleges and imposed a nighttime curfew in essentially the most susceptible areas.

The Philippines’ Institute of Volcanology and Seismology mentioned the almost four-minute eruption of Kanlaon volcano on Monday afternoon had prompted a pyroclastic density present — a superhot stream of gasoline, ash, particles and rocks that may incinerate something in its path.

“It is a one-time however main eruption,” Bacolcol instructed the AP, including that volcanologists have been assessing if Monday’s eruption spewed outdated volcanic particles and rocks clogged in and close to the summit crater or was brought on by rising magma from beneath.

Few volcanic earthquakes have been detected forward of Monday’s explosion, Bacolcol mentioned.

The alert stage round Kanlaon was positioned on Monday to the third-highest of a five-step warning system, indicating “magmatic eruption” could have begun and should progress to additional explosive eruptions.

The two,435-meter (7,988-foot) volcano, one of many nation’s 24 most-active volcanoes, final erupted in June sending a whole lot of villagers to emergency shelters.

In 1996, three hikers have been killed close to the height and a number of other others have been later rescued when Kanlaon erupted with out warning, officers mentioned.

Situated within the so-called Pacific “Ring of Hearth,” a area liable to earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, the Philippines can also be lashed by about 20 typhoons and storms a yr and is among the many nations most liable to pure disasters.


#Mass #evacuation #Philippine #villages #underway #main #volcanic #eruption


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Jim Gomez , 2024-12-10 03:12:00