In 2010, Panagiota Kalliakmani had just secured her chemistry degree and dreamed of going into research. Then the Greek economic crisis struck.
With the cash-strapped state forced into massive spending cuts, the plug was pulled on myriad research programmes and a police forensics job Panagiota planned to apply for in her home city of Thessaloniki was scrapped.
“The crisis was a slap in the face,” says the 34-year-old, who is now a chef.
As the fiscal crunch ate away a quarter of Greece’s economy, some 300,000 Greeks emigrated.
Unemployment soared to highs of nearly 28 per cent in 2013. Tens of thousands of small and middle-sized businesses shut shop.
“The most painful part of this era were the small get-togethers we had to say farewell to friends emigrating for work,” says Natassa Dourida, a 35-year-old civil engineer.
In 2013, Natassa was working in construction.
As contracts dried up, she resolved to stay in Athens and became involved in the peer economy that emerged as mainly young Greeks sought to help each other in response to the crisis.
In 2015, Natassa helped set up Communitism, a group that undertakes restoration of rundown historic buildings for community use.
“The crisis was an opportunity to learn how to live and solve problems together,” she said.
On August 20, Greece’s third and final bailout officially ends after years of austerity measures.
The economy is growing slowly, and unemployment fell to below 20 per cent in May for the first time since 2011.
“Greece has managed to get back to its feet,” Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said in a statement earlier this month.
For some, however, rebuilding their lives is not that easy.
“I’m putting back together the pieces of broken dreams,” says Panagiota.
Matina Tetsiou, a mother of two in her forties, not only lost her petrol station job in 2014 but then split up with her husband and struggled to support her family on low unemployment benefits.
Matina now lives with her mother to save rent, but she is unable to pay her social insurance arrears and a 2005 bank loan for a business that failed.
“It’s enough to feed the children,” she says.
After two years of studies, Panagiota is about to sign her first employment contract as a chef in September. But she won’t allow herself to get excited over it. “Nothing is certain,” she says. — AFP
Hélène Colliopoulou
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