15-24 years of age and women are the chief victims of this “monster”. The long-time unemployed
(those who have been seeking work for more than 12 months) amount to 71% of the total, while in
comparison with the previous year, unemployment in the third quarter of 2012 was at 24.8%.
PRAKSIS gives its answers! A new program for strengthening entrepreneurship (the “Business
Coaching Center”) has begun, while the offices of promoting employment in Athens and Thessaloniki
(via the Polyclinics) create a safety net for those populations that lose their jobs. Labour counsellors
of the program SYN STO PLIN create a new set of prospects for the future absorption of those inte-
grated to the program.
Our answers may be of a small scale …the perspectives they create, however, are long-term. In this
we believe, for this we fight.
Our driving force continues to be our adherence to the values of voluntary and humanitarian actions
in favor of populations who are in danger either due to poverty or diseases or natural disasters, wars
and their consequences, or even due to racial, political or social persecution, that have caused these
people to abandon their homes. Everyday, we bear witness that the populations who are being de-
nied entry to the networks of social welfare are constantly becoming larger.
The scenery in Greece has undergone great changes. The profound economic crisis has created
generations and hosts of “neo-poor” and “neo-homeless” Greeks. These are people of a new era,
which is marked by unprecedented changes for Greek reality. A new class has originated, that of the
working poor. Families who are unable to meetthe basic needs of their children. Children who lack
access to essential food and pharmaceutical care due to the lack of health insurance of their parents.
To all of these problems, we, the people of PRAKSIS, are actively participating in the efforts to ease
human suffering, in the name of respect for human dignity and the protection of human life.
We continue besides to be inspired by the same values that were the building blocks of PRAKSIS,
which have Man at the center of our efforts. The Man who suffers, the Man who is deprived of his
rights or who is going through a critical period of his life and is trying to regain his dignity. The same
values that at PRAKSIS transform the interest for Man, to an interest for our fellow-man.
Man, irre-
spective of race, ideology, religion, remains the highest value guiding all processes. There also is a
defining role played
by the state or the political system in which one must live; and, indeed, when the
system one faces persecutes or threatens him, our presence as a defense is mandatory.
Nevertheless, at the same time, we try to remain collected and objective. We try not to participate
and, if possible, to counter incidents of under or over bidding of figures which distort the picture of
social services and welfare. We produce documents based on primary evidence and current situa-
12
InRetrospection
By Tzanetos Antypas
