The President of the Republic, Mr.Nikos Christodoulides, attended an event tonight at the Bank of Cyprus headquarters to mark three years since the establishment of SupportCy.
Speaking at the event, the President of the Republic said, among other things, that his presence at the event is "a minimum indication of appreciation and honour for the work you do and I have had the opportunity as Foreign Minister to experience it personally on many of the occasions when, for me, SupportCy has emerged as one of the best ambassadors of Cyprus abroad.
After the explosion in the port of Beirut, the Republic of Cyprus, with your support and assistance, sent the largest humanitarian aid mission of the Republic of Cyprus abroad. And a few days ago I received in Cyprus the Prime Minister of Lebanon, who had expressed his wish to come to Cyprus and congratulate me personally because, as he said, they will never forget the help we sent them following the explosion in Lebanon.
The first reason I am here is to thank you, I really experienced your work and how important it is.
On the campaign trail I said that I don't consider myself a Messiah or that I have a magic wand and one of the reasons I made those references is because I am a believer in public-private partnership.
Only if we join forces can we really tackle all the challenges that we are facing in general, but especially when we are talking about humanitarian crises, where there needs to be an immediate response.
My second reason for being here is again related to the election campaign. I have in my memory when I started my effort, that effort relied heavily, over 50-60 percent on volunteers. I know all too well the importance of volunteers, some people underestimate the importance of volunteers, but volunteers are the ones who at the end of the day achieve the victories. Your contribution is invaluable and I would like to congratulate you. The first is that one of the first decisions we made at Cabinet was the need to look at all the relevant Government plans and how we respond in the event of a crisis. Let me remind you that we came to power the day after the tragic accident in Tempe. So one of the first decisions was to look again at all those plans, to be ready - I hope we don't have to, but to be a responsible Government you have to be ready for an eventuality that you have to respond to.
In fact, yesterday, there was a meeting of all the relevant Ministers and today after the Cabinet I announced the appointment, on an unpaid basis, of Professor George Bustra, who deals with civil protection issues, to look at all these plans. Various government departments are involved, it is not clear what each one does. We started yesterday with this meeting, today with George's appointment.
And I'd like to ask SupportCy today to be part of this effort. We need your expertise.
The second announcement concerns the meeting that I had earlier today with the Foreign Minister of Israel, who came to Cyprus on the occasion of the Cyprus-Greece-Israel Foreign Ministers Meeting tomorrow, in the context of regional cooperation.
And one of the issues that I discussed today with both the Cypriot and the Israeli Foreign Minister is the need for the three countries to cooperate on civil protection issues.
We want and I ask tonight from the volunteers, but also from SupportCy, to cooperate with respective non-governmental organizations, voluntary organizations of neighboring countries, so that in case the need arises to move together, to create cooperation, synergies with neighboring states, highlighting, among other things, the importance of our country."
(PM/NG)
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