With the highest unemployment rate in Europe and an economy that has lost a fifth of its GDP in five years, Greece has a long way to go before it can be considered stable again. Those who are hurting the most are usually children; roughly 10 percent of young students are suffering from food insecurity, and everyday Grecians are seeing local cases of child hunger every day.
These scenes of pain are new and scary to most Greek citizens. Leonidas Nikas, an elementary school principal interviewed by the New York Times, said that he could not have imagined Greek children coming to school hungry “in his wildest dreams.” Because Greek schools do not offer lunches for free to students, a major source of nourishment that many Americans are used to is not an available option. Nikas goes on to explain that many families have gone beyond struggling for jobs—they are now struggling to get enough food to live.
Greece has been facing enormous debts due to increases in public spending, along with decreases in tax revenue through widespread evasion practices. When Greece was able to join the Euro, it (and some dubious accounting practices) allowed excessive spending to occur without much notice, since the risk for inflating such a widely used currency in such a small economy was low. As a result, drastic austerity policies have been enacted; public spending on social programs has been gutted, and it’s not just the poor Greek citizens who are feeling the pain.
The same New York Times article reported horrifying stories of hunger and desperation. Children have been begging and even stealing to get food. Some are seen searching through garbage for leftovers; others have doubled over from sheer hunger and even fainted. A 2012 report from UNICEF elaborated on the effects of the economic crisis on Greece’s children. From significant increases in violence, crime, and school bullying, to the extreme pressures placed on social ties and communities, the variety of negative consequences facing Greek children can seem insurmountable.
Fortunately, there are organizations working to help. One is Prolepsis, an NGO that focuses on public health. A program they implemented provided free lunches (consisting of milk, fruit, and a sandwich) to children in over 30 schools, where “more than half of the 6,400 families participating said they had experienced ‘medium to serious hunger.'” After the experiment ended, that number fell to 41%. It is now being expanded to help feed over 20,000 children. However, this solution only treats the symptomatic malnutrition of young Grecians; there needs to be a prioritization of social programs to help cover the basic needs of all citizens in whatever kind of solution is finally implemented.
— Jake Simon
Sources: New York Times, UNICEF