Panel Discussion
The Basement of the UnwantedDemarginalizing the Margin;
Nowadays discrimination and exclusion have shaken the whole
democratic foundation. When Roma people are living in the margin,
mentally ill people are mistreated, the rights of transgender
people are not recognized and refugees still struggle to become
socially accepted, we cannot call ourselves civilized human beings.
This situation served as an incentive for the organization of a
panel discussion during the session where people from different
backgrounds could share their stories.
An Interview with Dr. Voutira
The moderator of this panel discussion Dr. Effie Voutira, is
highly interested in topics concerning marginalization.
Q: On which of the discussions topics have you worked upon?A: I
am mainly working upon the needs and problems of refugees and
immigrants, but I found extremely interesting the discussion about
LGBT rights which are highly ne-glected by the conservative Greek
society. Q: What is your opinion about the vi-olation of the LGBT
human rights? A: Since we live in a democratic so-ciety, all
different opinions should be respected and personal inclina-tions
should not result in inequality. Q: What do you think is the main
prob-lem, mentally ill people have to face?A: I find unjust the
fact that the neigh-borhood for example, based on their own
presumptions upon the mental condition and behavior of someone can
by a single call to the authorities, redefine his future.Q: How do
you see the future of ref-ugees and asylum seekers in Greece?A:
According to the charter of the fun-damental human rights, all
human beings should be treated with dig-nity and refugees are not
an excep-tion. Basic provisions and legal cover-age are a necessity
for their survival.
A special thanks to Dr. Voutira for her time and inspiring words
which can help par-ticipants of the session form a more spher-ical
perspective of the sessions theme.
After two and a half hours of interesting discussion, it was
time for Mr. Zlkf Mu-rat Bora to take the floor and unfold his
unique story. Mr. Bora is a Kurdish politi-cal refugee who left
Turkey at the age of 18. Mr. Bora described to us the feeling of
being a refugee; the sense of un-belongingness, fear and injustice
that always haunts him. He started with a clarification: A refugee
is not an immigrant. An immigrant decides to leave his country,
while a refugee is forced to. Moreover, Mr. Bora talked about the
inhumane situations refugees face when they wait until they are
granted asylum, a procedure that can even take months, de-priving
the human rights of the refugees.
Young refugees are seeking a better qual-ity life with a
brighter future. Being de-prived of basic human rights, including
but not limited to living under intolerable conditions, facing
racism and continually being stereotyped, refugees are radical-ly
set within the margin. For him, open borders should not only stand
for free trade of goods, but also for free move-ment. The purpose
of the EU is not to punish and stand as an obstacle towards the
wellbeing of the people, but take on the responsibility and help
the people.
Anna Apergi is a symbol for Greeces LGBT community, being a
transgender woman fighting for equality in rights and work
opportunities for the entire LGBT community. After briefly
ex-pressing her thoughts, she was asked some questions from the
delegates.
Q: When you personally decided to redefine your sex, how did
people close to you react? A: Fortunately, my family and my close
friends were completely fine with the process. However, there are
many ex-amples of people who even had to move to another city to be
able to live without judgment after their decision.Q: Sometimes,
society tends to hide away transgender people. Do you think that
media promo-tion would help demarginalization?A: Of course, as long
as the promotion is done in a proper way. It is import-ant that
people from the community are not perceived as a joke in a false
way.Q: Do you think that transgender people should have the
opportuni-ty to start a family? Or would a child raised under the
circumstances be ex-posed to an abnormal family life?A: Of course
they should! The word normal only has the meaning you de-cide to
give. The socially accepted norms are something us, people,
decide.
A Chance in a New Life
Gender vs Sex
by Anastasia Ntracha and Nikos Koukovinos
by Panagiotis Chatzistratis and Nikos Avramidis
by Athina Firtinidou and Natasha Antalaki
T h e w o r d n o r -m a l o n l y h a s t h e m e a n i n g y o
u d e -c i d e t o g i v e . - A n n a A p e r g i
How does mental illness socially affect peo-ple? And what about
the opposite what impact does social exclusion have to peo-ples
mental state? We approached Ms Aph-roditi Milovianou, a community
psychol-ogist, to hear her thoughts on the topic.
Firstly, she said that undoubtedly, social ex-clusion, being a
forced action, has a negative psychological effect on people. Next,
men-tally ill people carry a double stigma contrib-uting to their
social exclusion; they are ex-cluded from society because of their
illness, and hence they further exclude themselves because of
societys hostility towards them.
As an example of how mental difficulties may cause
marginalisation, she mentioned the cur-rent difficult situation in
the labour market, where young people are exposed to social
exclu-sion due to difficulties causing mental illness.
Predictable as it may sound, Ms Milovianou put emphasis on
educating people from an early age in order to prevent exclusion,
and interfering as early as possible once a mental illness occurs,
because of the vicious circle of the abovemen-tioned double stigma.
Also, as we often cannot perceive their way of thinking, listening
care-fully to people with mental problems and treat-ing them
respectfully is of crucial importance.
Romani population all around the world strug-gle to establish
their basic human rights and the situation in Greece is not an
exception. Kateri-na Bebe, a well educated Roma woman, who is
appointed by the Aristotle University of Thes-saloniki as a social
mediator in the region of Dendropotamos, shared her inspirational
story; a story concerning her effort towards demar-ginalization.
She was the founder of the first female organization defending the
education-al rights of Roma communities, to safeguard a better
future for her children. The means to achieve social inclusion
range from private lin-guistic and scientific courses to training
semi-nars lectured by specialized social workers. The activities of
the organization are self subsidized and aim at bridging the gap
between the Roma community and the lcal municipalities. Ms Bebe
aspires to collaborate with other similar oriented organizations
across Europe, and fur-ther identify the needs and the strain of
those people lving in the margin. During this journey she hopes for
the support of NGOs and Euro-pean Parliament committees so as to
ensure a greater impact of her actions. Returning home every night,
seeing her nurse daughter, a de-voted human rights advocate, in the
multicul-tural lcal school provides her with enough strength to
continue paving the way towards demarginalization for more than 350
Romani.
Closing remarks were made yesterday at the panel discussion by
Dimos Papadimitriou, a law student at Aristotle Uni-versity of
Thessaloniki. Asked upon the way that EYP and the young people that
consist it can help to de-marginalize the margin, Dimos, as a
member of EYP himself, didnt hesitate to answer. EYP makes you gain
experiences, travel and broaden your horizons. Getting to talk
about young people and the margin, Dimos noted that dialogue and
resolutions agreed upon by con-sensus in EYP can also apply in real
life so as to eliminate the margin. Youngsters havent shaped their
minds yet, they are hungry for new experiences, eager to listen to
different points of view and open to alternative ways of thinking.
Our society is turning a new page to an era that tends to be open
to groups of people that are not afraid to put their democratic
rights into practice and teach society a very important lesson;
that we dont just need to imagine a world of people, sharing life
in peace.
Mental Inclusion Roma:A Path to Inclusion
by Kostina Prifti and Einar Stefnsson
by Anastasia Ntracha and Nikos Koukovinos
by Kalliopi Terzidou andIker Bengoetxea de Tena
Since we live in a democrat-ic society, all different opin-ions
should be respected and personal incli-nations should not result in
inequality.- Dr. Voutira
