Our friends and colleagues in Greece

Hello you lovely lot. We hope your summer is going well and as much as I’d love to see everyone enjoying the heat it’s another story over here in Greece. It would be gorgeous to feel some rain fall. On that note Athens is experiencing an unusually prolonged intensely hot period with the weather and that  is where this week’s nomination lands. It was shocking to be here and witness the effects of the heat first hand and through the people we are working with every day and so it prompted us to send in the nomination and our amazing admin team (of which I am one) supported the nomination immediately. 

We have attached a photo of the sky over Athens which was the first sign of the devastating fires. 

I would like to nominate on behalf of 3 members of 500 reasons this week. Simon, Emma and myself. We are in Athens and are working with a Greek television production team who are shocked by the scale and severity of the wild fires in the north of Athens. Many houses have been been burned to the ground and those that are still standing can’t be lived in because of severe smoke damage which means there are a lot of displaced people including members of our crew, plus the devastation to the local wildlife and environment is huge. 

I would like to help Nikolaos who spent 3 days trying to stop the fires from coming into his shared house, his garden is burned out and they cannot live there because of the smoke damage. His neighbours house burnt down and he is still trying to find them in order to help. He is extremely community minded and will use the money to help those around him directly and offer some respite from the searing heat. He won’t take any money himself (I hope he will) and will work the best way to help those around him. 

We thought of nominating help through a big charity but I hope you agree it’s much nicer to help someone you know who can then provide help where it’s needed. 

Thank you for considering this nomination this week. 

Ray.