At the presence of the Minister of National Defence Nikos Dendias, this morning at the Hellenic Armed Forces Officer’s Club, a special event for the International Day of Persons with Disabilities took place.
The event was also attended by the the Chief of HNGS Evangelos Apostolakis, the Chief of HAFGS Evangelos Tournas and the Chief of HAGS Christos Manolas.
Present at the event were also a delegation of the Disabled War Veterans, as well as Persons with Disabilities children or parents of the military and civilian Armed Forces’ personnel.
During his address, the Minister of National Defence underlined the following:
“It is a special joy and emotion to come today to our meeting. A meeting, allow me to characterize it in the way that I feel it, of great importance, since its focal point is the child, the person and social solidarity, the relation we can have among us.
We are here and we unite our forces in a very sensitive task, that of recognition and respect to diversity and social participation.
The way society treats children and their education is usually indicative of the level of its development. Even more, the level of Special Needs Education applied and its evolution in a society is essentially the course itself of society; it mirrors social attitudes, conducts and perceptions.
Investing to childhood is the most efficient investment a State can make. In this way, every state, every modern state can break the circle of indigence. By investing to children, our country invests in the future, in prospect.
At this point, everybody’s contribution, as well as the Armed Forces’ contribution, is decisive, so as to promote policies related to the real circumstances our children experience today, in their hard, pressured, electric routine.
It is everybody’s obligation and the current Government’s basic priority, in this effort for national salvation, to form a society of solidarity and harmonious coexistence, a society that will be characterised by humanity and altruism, where all citizens will be active.
It had become understandable that the problem of Persons with Disabilities does not emanate from physical or mental limitations, but from the limitations set by social apathy and indifference.
We should overcome anachronistic ideas and realise that there is never one too many, that persons with disabilities are in every way equal members of our society. We owe to invest in their special capabilities, to improve their life conditions and our natural and social environment, so as to increase these persons’ performance and participation in social life.
And, since the disabled war veterans honour us with their presence, people who have paid the highest price in service of their country, the improvement of all those conditions and the facilitation of persons with disabilities’ everyday life are an obligation and recognition of their major contribution.
You are our country’s living history, a reminder of heroism on the altar of national and individual dignity. The country, the state must deliver, with the respect you deserve.
At the Ministry of National Defence, feeling the responsibility, we take measures to facilitate the personnel and the families of persons with disabilities, we actively participate and take action that ensure social equality and justice between citizens, and promote at the same time the concept of mutual support and solidarity. The contact with you often shows the way to us all, how to become better people, wiser in our decisions.
Allow me to warmly welcome our meeting today and the feeling this meeting can offer us. With all my heart, I stand by all those who offer to children, to our country’s future; those who serve people and values, those who show their intention to actively participate to the improvement of the Greek citizens’ life quality; to the improvement of everybody’s soul”.
