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Where are the Greek volunteers? A visit to Zakynthos island confirmed that the old good days of the massive participation of the Greek volunteers in the Olympics of 2004 belong to the past. Out of 150 volunteers working on the island for ARCHELON, the main non governmental organization that fights for the conservation of caretta caretta, only ten of them come actually from Greece for this season. The Scientific Officer and Zakynthos project Leader, Christopher Dean explains the law number of the greek volunteers: ¡°For a long time we ¡¯ve concentrated on advertizing for volunteers outside Greece. The fact that we deal a lot with tourists, makes it important to have english speakers, german speakers etc¡±. He also thinks that maybe the appeal to a greek person is to go abroad and do the volunteering. Effie Ganou, 20, one of the greek volunteers decided to come and work in Zakynthos because of personal interest and consiousness on environmental issues. However, she is dissapointed by the fact that a few people actually know about these programmes: ¡°I think that Media should advertize more such efforts and inform the public on the significance of protecting the loggerhead turtle.¡± Archelon¡¯s programmes¡¯ usually last three weeks and the volunteers stay in the organization¡¯s camping site in Kalamaki, a seaside resort of the protected area of Laganas beach. Their living expences are covered by a 75 euros annual subscription plus 25 euros per week The staff has rotating shifts and their main tasks are to conduct morning and night surveys on the nesting sites, to patrol the beaches during the day and raise public awareness. Jonathan Kirby, a volunteer from the UK thinks that taking part in the programme is He said: ¡°It¡¯s a very intrinsically rewarding experience because it is totally volunteering.¡± |
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