Monday 31 March 2014

Sign for our future!


Children of the SEEH ask you to sign for their future. [Artwork created by children working with the Head of the Art Department Aglaia Michelakis.]

Stephen Fry supports the SEE!

Save the SEE profile image

You can help support us by changing your profile picture on social media sites to the one below until 8 April. Every little helps!





An appeal to the Greek Minister of Education


A student of the School of European Education Heraklion Crete appeals to the Greek Minister of Education to save his school.

Sunday 30 March 2014

Nine days to save the SEEH!

By Maria Kasmirli. [Cross-post from mariakasmirli.com]

Who would have thought that during the Greek presidency of the Council of Europe, the Greek government would allow the only European School in the whole of Greece to face closure? It’s scarcely believable, yet it’s happening.

We are petitioning the government to see sense and act to save the school. Please sign our petition and ask your friends and colleagues to do so too. (There are buttons at the bottom of the petition page to share it on social media.)

Please act: There are only nine more days until 8 April, when the school’s fate will be decided. Let us help the Minister see that he should make the legal changes needed to keep the school open. He promised to do it, and it is the right thing to do – right for the children, parents, and teachers of the school, right for ENISA, right for Heraklion, right for Crete, right for Greece, and right for him, as a member of a government that believes that Greece’s future lies at the heart of Europe.

We can all help him do it. Our last meeting at the school was a wonderfully warm and supportive one. All of us -- parents, teachers, and ENISA – were united and spoke with one voice to support the future of our school, the future of our kids, the future of Greece in Europe.
Once again, please help. Here are some ways you can show your support:

Sign and share the petition.

Leave a message of support. (Please spare a moment to write a few words. We will show the comments to the Minister.)

Follow campaign updates on our blog.

Read more about the school.

There are more relevant links at the bottom of the petition.

Even though I and the other parents and teachers have a personal interest in keeping the school going, we do genuinely believe that its survival is important for the future of Crete, Greece, and Europe.

Thank you!

Maria Kasmirli is a class teacher at the SEEH and parent to three SEEH pupils.

1,000 signatures!

Our petition has just reached 1,000 signatures! This is a great result after just two days. But let's press on! There is so much affection and support for this school, and we need to impress that upon the Minister.

So, if you haven't signed, please do, and if you have, please share the link with friends and colleagues through facebook, twitter, etc.

The SEEH means a lot to Heraklion and it symbolizes something very important to Europe. The children of this school and their peers across Europe are our future! 

Iraklio Live reports our campaign

Iraklio Live has a report on our campaign (in Greek but your browser may offer a translation).

Contacting the Minister


The person ultimately responsible for the fate  of the SEEH is the Greek Minister of Education and Religious Affairs, Konstantinos Arvanitopoulos. If you would like to urge him to support the school, you can email him at this address: info@arvanitopoulos.gr 

The minister also has a personal facebook page, where you can post messages.

More on the SEEH

If you would like to know more about the SEEH and the background to the current crisis for the school, please see this blog post by Maria Kasmirli

Pupils write about their school


"The SEE is great because children from other countries who do not know Greek go there and still have lessons in their own language."

Petition update

Our petition to the Greek Education Minister opened on Friday 28 March, and by Saturday night it had reached 750 signatures. This is great news and we are very grateful to everyone who has supported us. But we need to press on and get more signatures if we are present a compelling case to the Minister before our 8 April deadline. So if you haven't signed, please do so, and if you have, please share the link with your friends. 

Voices from the SEE

You can get an idea of what is special about the SEE from this video, which was made by Maria Kasmirli, a teacher at the school, as part of the celebrations for Europe Day 2013. In it, parents and teachers speak (in various languages) about what the school means to them and how they see the future for its children.  


Maria's YouTube channel also features videos of her students' work, including their performances of extracts from Shakespeare.