Wellcome and CIF Hellas Annual Report
Catherine Psarouli CIF Hellas’ President
Dear all CIF Hellas members, representatives of National Branches and Hellenic Association of Social Workers, Contact Persons, members of CIF Executive Committee, past participants of CIF Hellas IPEPs, CIF Hellas Friends, thank you all for being with us today and welcome you at CIF Hellas Virtual Celebrating New Year’s Traditional Cutting of Vasilopita (New Year’s Pie).
Before I start the CIF Hellas annual activities I would like to keep a minute of silence in memory of Mata Kokkinaki, honary member and dear friend of CIF Hellas for many years, whom we lost last January.
2020 was a very tough year all over the world.
Fear, uncertainty, insecurity have taken over our lives. New words and expressions invaded our lives such as: lockdown, take away, click away, virtual meetings.
Activities such as: traveling, exchange programs stopped existing!
2020 started with the best perspectives for CIF Hellas: Till the end of January, we had nine candidates for CIF Hellas’ IPEP 2020 and finally we had accepted seven.
Also, in collaboration with the CIP and Stacy Moreno from the School of Social Work of the University of Arizona USA, , we were planning in May an educational visit, Called: “ Greek Program for US Students”. The theme was: “Refugee Crisis in Greece and its Implications for Social Work”
Unfortunately, all of the above activities were canceled as COVID 19 Pandemic invaded the universe.
Despite the above difficulties, there were some activities in 2020 which I will mention right now.
- CIF Hellas held in January the new Year celebration event with CIF Hellas members, and friends. The event took place at MYRTILLO CAFE which is a place run by mentally and physically challenged people.
- In January we updated the CIF Hellas website www.cifhellas.gr in Greek and English you can visit it and learn the latest from our Branch.
- On February 12, we had our General Assembly.
- In September, following a proposal by Eugenia Katoufa (friend of CIF Hellas) we asked the CIF NBs and CPs to take part to ‘Elderly and Coronavirus’ research, asking about the measures that were taken to tackle the situation for the elderly.
You will read the results of the research on the next text of CIF WN.
- In September we submited a proposal to held the BD Meeting 2021 in Greece but with no success. The Estonian proposal was approved.
- On November 14-15 we participated in the virtual CIF BD Meeting
- In the last CIF WN September 2020 issue, two articles written by our members Nikoleta Kyrana and Chara Galanou were published.
Some information regarding CIF:
The following were approved at the virtual BD Meeting last November:
- Next BD Meeting in August 2021 in Estonia
- Virtual CIF Confernce in November 2021 in Cyprus
- BD Meeting 2022 in Israel
- CIF Confernce 2023 in Germany
- CIF Confernce 2025 India
Some branches CIF Austria, CIF Finland and CIF Sweden announced their VIPEP for 2021 and Two Branches CIF Israel and Netherlands have announced their IPEP for May and November 2021. CIF Hellas decided not to hold an IPEP in 2021 and it was postponed for 2022.
Wishes
I wish 2021 to heal all the wounds that 2020 brought and give us strength to achieve CIF & CIP goals with health, courage and faith.