Only 3 days after the announcement of the two-year extension of the collaboration between FC Olympiacos and UNICEF and one day before the World Day of Children’s Rights, the UNICEF Awards were presented, as is the case every year.
Olympiacos FC participated in the event with their 6th Vice President Dimitris Agrafiotis, the Communications Director Kostas Karapapas, the UNICEF Project Executive Veroushka Georganti, the Commercial,
Corporate Communication and Social Awareness Director Konstantinos Kardiasmenos as well as the player of the team Alberto Botia.
“Iam very happy to having attended this UNICEF event. I also represent my teammates in Olympiacos. The team supports UNICEF’S “100% Campaign”, a really huge initiative. It helps many children all over the world. We are all united in this battle. We are happy we renewed our collaboration with UNICEF and we can hope that this great work will continue in the future too,” said Alberto Botia to Olympiacos TV.
“It’s a great joy and honour for us to be participating this year as well in UNICEF’s award and to be presenting these awards to the young schoolchildren. These are schoolchildren that, with their beautiful paintings, their songs, their poems and their compositions also contribute in their own way to the promotion of children’s rights. In recent years, Olympiacos and UNICEF have formed a really special and close relationship. Since 2013, when Olympiacos became the biggest donor in UNICEF’s global vaccination campaign “100% Campaign”, we have managed to immunise over 1 million babies. These are babies that needed our help in all parts of the world.
At the same time, we trained medical healthworkers in many different countries. We recently renewed our partnership with UNICEF aiming at the immunisation of another 2 million children over the next two years. In other words, we remain loyal to the promise, the commitment if you may, made by the President of Olympiacos, Mr Vangelis Marinakis, to daily help with all our powers the children that need our contribution. We are especially proud that UNICEF stands by our side in our effort,” said Veroushka Georganti to Olympiacos TV after the conclusion of the event.
This year, the ceremony was held for the first time without the long-standing President of UNICEF Greece, Lambros Kanellopoulos, who passed away at the beginning of September. To honour his memory, a special award with his name was created. This award was presented to the Greek coast guard for their daily extraordinary effort to save thousands of people in the sea. In fact, during the presentation of the award to the Coast Guard (note: the award was received by the 1st Deputy Chief Athanasios Hondronasios), a relevant heart-breaking video was shown that really moved everyone.
To be fair, besides the Coast Guard, Olympiacos was also warmly applauded by everyone present as the “100% Campaign” helps vaccinate children all around the world. So far Olympiacos and UNICEF have vaccinated 1 million children and, additionally, following the two-year renewal of their partnership, another 2 million children are expected to be immunised. “We thank Olympiacos that prove they are number one on the pitch and are also number one in social sensibilities and help the children of the world in need. We also thank our guests from Olympiacos for coming here today as well as the President of the club Vangelis Marinakis,” said both the Vice President of UNICEF Mrs Sofia Tzitzikou as well the General Manager of the Organisation Ilias Lymperis.
To see more photographs, click HERE.
