Greek Debt Crisis: Children Too Hungry To Exercise In PE Class

Greek budget cuts have taken a toll on even schoolchildren.

Many Greek schoolchildren are too underfed to exercise in physical education class anymore, wrote Victoria Prekate, an Athens schoolteacher, in an e-mail to The Guardian. They get dizzy when they try to exercise. In response, schools and parents' associations are gathering food to distribute it to children who need it the most, according to Prekate.

Some Greek parents have abandoned their children because they no longer can afford to pay to take care of them, BBC News reports. Hundreds of parents have approached one Athens nonprofit to ask if they could leave their children there, according to the BBC. In December, a kindergarten teacher found a note about one of her four-year-old students: "I will not be coming to pick up Anna today because I cannot afford to look after her.... Please take good care of her. Sorry. Her mother."

Hungry children have not been able to keep up appearances. A 13-year-old schoolboy fainted in school in Crete in December, after his family had not eaten for two days, according to Athens News. Some Greek schoolchildren have been diagnosed with starvation, and others wear shoes with holes in them, Athens teacher Dimitris Margiolis told the Greek news outlet NewsIt.

The Greek government has been forced to make deep budget cuts in order to receive new bailouts from international lenders. Its latest budget cuts -- $4.31 billion in all -- slash pensions, healthcare spending, education spending and defense spending. The cuts have deepened the depression in Greece, where the unemployment rate is 21 percent and more than one in two youths are unemployed.

Austerity has not even helped Greece's budget, since lower incomes have led to lower tax revenues, leading to higher deficits.

Some Greeks facing joblessness have chosen to take their own lives. Suicides in Greece spiked 40 percent in the first half of 2011, according to Greek government data cited by the Wall Street Journal. A Greek woman and her husband threatened to commit suicide in February because the government was shutting down their agency due to budget cuts.

Comments

[silviarimembriancor]

01:30 PM on 03/17/2012

as an Italian who live under the austerity, I can tell you this. It is not easy to pay 2€ for a liter of fuel for your car, or to pay the 45% of your income in taxes. Why we have to live this way ? It is simple: there are Italians who do not pay their taxes, and so the people who pay them have to pay a lot of them. I have a great compassion for what it is going on in Athens, but Greece has really been helped by the other European countries - even my own country that, with all its problems, had however to pump money for Athens ( money also paid by the Italians, the good ones who pay their taxes) -. I want to say this to all the people in Greece. Have a little patience, a little courage and we will get out of this situation. Greece has seen a very big part of his debt sort of "deleted" in the last days: it means that your sons and nephews will not be paying for it for the next thirty or forty years. Instead nobody was so "kind" with us Italians. We are going to pay the debt that our inept politicians created with the rest of the world up to the last euro, and for many years to come.

[guveqzero]

08:39 AM on 03/15/2012

Our criminal banking system needs to be dissolved. There is no reason in our world for hunger, especially justified on the basis of paper.

[Peanut Santiago]

02:17 AM on 03/15/2012

THIS is America's future if the family values, pro-life Repugs get their way completely.

Laissez faire capitalism....along with little money for schools and healthcare for the masses AND hungry kids.

Too bad the Repugs are pro-life UNTIL the baby is born.
Yet....yet.....even before birth the Repugs don't want to spend the money to help the pregnant woman get enough nutritious food or prenatal (health) care.

And marriage will become less and less common among the lower classes who see no economic benefits to marriage.

[Michael GE]

09:40 PM on 03/14/2012

Sorry but: Greece has for example the Latsis billionaires and many others wealthy Greeks. Why does the Greek parliament, the Greek government allow that many of their people have to starve while others of their people collect millions in revenues?
Is it not the first and foremost responsibility of EVERY Greek to serve his community/municipalty/country?
If one is a Greek and dives into his pool every morning just to be carried later into the office by one of the several cars available to him ... isn't it his first responsibility as being a Greek to say: I can do without the pool and I don't need a choice of cars in the morning ... because I can't explain that to a Greek child starving?

Yes, it would raise less social questions inside Greece if the rest of Europe just transferred the money ... but is that the point?

[Peanut Santiago]

02:19 AM on 03/15/2012

Greed and selfishness..........two things standing in the way of the rich helping the poor (by paying taxes).

[GRLev]

12:56 PM on 03/18/2012

Yes, with this mentality, Latsis and every other Greek billionaire and millionaire stole to create their wealth, it must be seized immediately by the state and redistributed. Why should they have money, spending it and enjoying it, it's pure evil. Your thinking and view is brilliant, every Greek with money should sell his cars, houses and everything else, after all a successful profitable business is pure evil and why should people be allowed to spend their money anyway they like. How many Greeks does Latsis hire through his banks and shipping companies? How many jobs did he create? None according to your logic, the billionaires just consume and produce nothing it looks like and spends on himself only.

[Michael GE]

07:33 PM on 03/18/2012

You maybe want to look at the context of the article: "The Greek government has been forced to make deep budget cuts in order to receive new bailouts from international lenders." Plus the question I raised in the end.

Ultimately, the article is another story which at the bottom line suggests/ implicates that the rest of Europe should give more money to Greece. So, rather than to bother a Greek citizen like Latsis it's fairer/better/ "the right thing" that people in other countries pick of a part of the Greek bill they (the Greek elite/ "Latsises") could easily pay themselves?

[Michael GE]

07:43 PM on 03/18/2012

For example, why does European taxpayer money have to be given to Greek Eurobank EFG of which Latsis own 44%? Why is it unthinkable to demand (as we would do with any family owned business!) that first the owners are held liable, means, he first has to tap into his own wealth?
Is a German millionaire, a French public servant, a Dutch business owner, an Italian autoworker, a Finish fisherman, etc. etc. as much or even more liable for that bank than someone who owns the lion share of it??

[h23154]

09:33 PM on 03/14/2012

If the people of this country were that dependent upon money from their government, then perhaps their culture of not paying taxes is at least partly to blame for this. As I have heard it explained, if you owed $10.00 in taxes, you would pay $5.00, give a $2.00 bribe to the tax collector, and cut your tax bill by 30%. (Yeah. I know they do not use "$'s" What's the symbol for worthless currency?)

[image18301]

11:23 PM on 03/14/2012

Part of the reasoning why this happens - and it does - is because Greeks have seen too many examples of the wealthy doing exactly the same thing, assuming they bother to pay taxes at all.

At some point you feel like an idiot if you pay the full amount owed when almost everyone else does not.

On top of this, the government there spent all its efforts on earning votes by promising civil service jobs instead of building infrastructure. Thus, almost all factories closed as well as most other industries so now that the civil jobs are going away, you have unfettered unemployment with no chance of hires.

[parabq]

04:27 PM on 03/14/2012

The rich banksters gain and the poor suffer - just amazing !!!

[Michael GE]

09:07 PM on 03/14/2012

50% cut across the allowances of Greek MoP and their personal staff and - et voila - enough money to give a free, warm, healthy meal to each and every of these children.

[frank day]

04:18 PM on 03/14/2012

Austerity is only for the little people.

Hank Paulson types and their fat cat friends aren't going to give up a damned thing.

[mtn gurl]

04:18 PM on 03/14/2012

Welcome to the Republican dream for America.

[Michael GE]

09:29 PM on 03/14/2012

Just as Republican promoters have no point comparing Greece to the US, so don't Democrats (or anyone else). It's utterly ridiculous!

The point you (Americans, both sides!) miss is: Political and ideological trenches serve no one.

The US is by sheer size a large global player. So are China and India. But it's just mere size. Start being honest to yourselves: You are right only if you can righteously claim that your opinions wouldn't matter more had you the same size than - let's say - Monaco.
Use the same talking points the US likes to use just when being the size of Liechtenstein and you would figure out: Oh, everybody's laughing.

[mtn gurl]

09:24 AM on 03/15/2012

Actually you can compare right wing parties around the world. They all have an idealogical tilt. American democrats overwhelmingly just want to live and let live- to invest in our people and our world. We don't make laws governing people's bodies - we don't shove our religions down your throat while we break God and man's laws. So please do not compare Republicans to Democrats. When democrats are in a majority in our govt. things get done- compromise is made - when republicans are in a majority nothing is accomplished except wars, war profiteering, and spending money that we do not have while lowering taxes on the wealthiest citizens.

[kisaky]

06:25 AM on 06/08/2012

Thnak you for letting people know what greek people are passing through .from here you can how people organize to help each other .
http://www.flowmagazine.gr/article/view/ta_shmeia_dianomhs_dwrean_faghtou_ka8hmerina_sthn_attikh/category/culture