No electricity or heating for Greeks

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This video says about itself:

Greeks struggling not to remain without electricity

8 Feb 2012

Greek citizens are demanding that the government should revert its decision of linking a new tax to the electricity bills. The authority is threatening to cut the service if they refuse to pay.

From Eleftherotypia, EnetEnglish in Greece:

Wednesday 11 December 2013

Pupils help classmate who was living in home without electricity or heating

Thessaloniki‘s mayor dismisses government’s promises to provide electricity to poor as ‘bullshit’

School pupils in Thessaloniki, where an estimated 15,000 households have had their power cut off, raise money to help a classmate – who was a friend of the girl who died of carbon monoxide poisoning last week – buy a gas heater

Students in the northern city of Thessaloniki have raised funds to buy a gas heater for a 13-year-old classmate and her mother, who for months have been living without electricity or heating in their home.

The Public Power Corporation cut the power to their apartment after the mother, who is unemployed and raising her child on her own, fell behind in her bill payments.

As it transpires, the girl, a student in the second year of Thessaloniki’s 3rd junior high school, was once a close friend of Sara, the 12-year-old girl who died of monoxide poisoning last week after inhaling fumes from a brazier she and her mother were using to heat their home after their power was cut off. The two had attended the same school until the girl in this case changed school this year.

Like Sara, the girl in this case revealed nothing to her new teachers or classmates about the difficult conditions at home, where she did her homework by candlelight.

And teachers would have remained ignorant of the girl’s circumstances had they not been tipped off by a colleague from her former school, as Christos Antoniou, the director at her new school, told Eleftherotypia.

“We wouldn’t have learned anything were we not told by a colleague from the 12th junior high school, which Sara and our student attended together last year.”

However, when he and teachers approached her about her situation, she initially declined to talk about it. After much effort on the part of the teachers, the student opened up and spoke about he mother’s financial difficulties.

But when teachers approached the mother, she insisted with dignity and pride that she was able to cope with the cold. Eventually, she agreed to accept the offer of a gas stove. In addition to that, the teachers informed local charitable organisations about the family’s situation, so that they could receive food and warm clothing.

“We’re trying to do everything in our power to help,” school director Antoniou says.

“In our region, we have so many children whose parents are facing serious financial problems. Most of them are Greek, who once had a job and a living but who suddenly found themselves unemployed.”

‘Bullshit’

Meanwhile, a promise from the environment ministry that it would provide free electricity to homes on extremely cold days was described as “bullshit” by Thessaloniki’s popular mayor, Yiannis Boutaris, as it would not help those who have already had their connections severed.

He estimated that in his municipality alone, an estimated 15,000 households have had their power cut off.

He said the government had to ensure that households unable to pay for electricity were provided with power.

“The blackouts have to cease for everyone,” he told Radio Thessaloniki.

Although the government promised earlier this week that no Greek home would be left without electricity, no proceedures have been established to work out who is entitled to have their power reconnected and how. While municipalities have been called to compile lists of needy households, power company DEI, citing privacy laws, has refused to provide data on households whose power was cut for failure to pay bills.

A girl, Sara, aged 13, died December 1 from carbon monoxide poisoning from fumes emanating from a makeshift brazier being used to heat the apartment she shared with her Serbian mother in Xirokrini, a working class district of Salonika, Greece’s second-largest city. The state-controlled energy company DEI cut off the power supply to the apartment they were living in three months ago, because of unpaid bills: here.

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