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Ekaterini
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Ekaterini Kotzia is a university student, doing her second bachelor's degree in Sport and Excercise science. Ekaterini loves the beach, nature, people, and animals. If Ekaterini isn't traveling, she spends her time at the beach diving, snorkeling, and enjoying the weather.
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"I only found out about the SDGs when I started working at YEU Cyprus. I am not sure why I didn't know about them before. I don't know if it's Cyprus. I don't know if it's my fault. If I didn't look around in a sense "as much as I should have". When I said Cyprus, I meant the fact that a lot of things just go unnoticed by most of the population. I think it is just a lack of willingness to find out about the new initiatives around Europe.
When it comes to the SDG Life Below Water, the truth is, I didn't know how bad it was even in Cyprus. I had an idea about the garbage islands, that are floating in the ocean. But I didn't know we had a smaller scale of that here in Cyprus. And I am realizing that that was really bad.
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I am not gonna say the situation here with SDG Life Below Water
and marine protection is bad, but it's not as protected as it should be.
The laws here are in a sense good, but they are not being strictly followed.
And I think that's the case for most things in Cyprus.
People, the population has the tendency to overlap rules and things like that.
So if they don't feel like something should be happening
or that they should follow a specific rule, they won't do it.
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We saw a few initiatives especially in the summer, there were few beach clean-ups and even a few ocean bottoms cleanups. But the thing is not to get to the point to need to do a cleanup. We need to prevent garbage or anything from getting into the water in the first place. So we need to go back and see who is causing it. Is it the company? Is it people who work around the sea? Like the fishermen who are older and unaware? What's causing the issue? We need to go a few steps back to prevent it from happening. And I think that's the case of all of the SDGs or at least most of them. Because finding temporary solutions, as it says, it's only temporary. You need to go a few steps back to see what's causing it and then fix it.
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When it comes to the SDG Zero Hunger, as a Cypriot I was misinformed for many years of my life thinking that we don't have people living on the streets, homeless, people that don't have the necessary to live a healthy life. I think a lot of us are unaware. But again I am not sure if why that is. Mabey it is the media, who are trying to control this flow of information.
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This year actually in 2020, early in the morning I went for a run, and for the first time in my life, I saw a person sleeping in their car. That was a wake-up call for me. Because I didn't know it was happening. At least I never saw it happening. I may have seen people sitting outside stores. Maybe a few times someone sleeping but that was happening only in the city center. And it was on rare occasions, for example, people asking for money around Christmas. It wasn't like a constant thing you would see. So seeing this person sleeping in their car in the middle of nowhere, outside the city center made me speechless. So we may have an issue here, maybe we are misinformed, maybe there are people who need help, maybe there are people who are hungry, maybe there are more people who don't have housing. More than we thought initially. This is something that at least the people I know like my friends and family if they knew and they had facts laid in front of them, they would be willing to help. One of the problems is that we don't know these things unless we research and we also don't know what the government does for these people. We want to see Cyprus where everyone is living a good and healthy life. Where everyone has everything they need. Not hiding the truth."
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I am not gonna say the situation here with SDG Life Below Water
and marine protection is bad, but it's not as protected as it should be.
The laws here are in a sense good, but they are not being strictly followed.
And I think that's the case for most things in Cyprus.
People, the population has the tendency to overlap rules and things like that.
So if they don't feel like something should be happening
or that they should follow a specific rule, they won't do it.
Which SDG are you most interested in if you could choose one?
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"Asking me to choose one is almost impossible. I am a huge fan of the environment and the ocean. So, the SDG that I come across more often is Life below water. As Cypriots, we have the tendency that "if we don't see something we don't care about it", so it only hits us when we see it.
When I would go snorkeling or free diving to the areas where there are no beaches and are only accessible by boat, those were the places where I saw all the microplastics and garbage on the surface. That's the moment it hits you, what are we doing? Why am I living my life as normal every day when I know this thing is happening. "
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What would be the SDGs that need more action and attention here in Cyprus?
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Many, for example, Climate Action. In my opinion, Cyprus is a small nation. When it comes to small nations, you can make a huge impact and a huge difference by not trying as hard as you would have to if you were like a large country. So we have a lot of Sun, so maybe it is a good idea if the government stops thinking about all the money we can get from gas and focuses on all the money we can save from using solar energy. Unfortunately in every case, money comes first in every country and every government.
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For the people reading the interview, what are your recommendations regarding the SGD’s, either for them to take an action, either to educate themselves? If you could send one message out to the people, what would that message be?
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Go through the SDGs and see what you can do as an individual. Chose five maybe and then do something for these five and then if you have like the willingness, chose five more.
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