The Hellenic Foundation for Culture Board of Directors announced yesterday that they would temporarily suspend all operations of the foundation’s 13 annexes from around the world. With an urgent letter they informed the heads of all the annex offices in order to regulate their expenses and proposed to the heads of each office to work without a salary.
The Foundation’s new president, Christodoulos Yiallouridis and the Board decided to proceed with the active solution of suspending all operations – instead of a gradual process of consolidation with under-active annexes – in order to proceed with the regulation that will focus primarily on the reduction of rents and fees. Especially after one of the annexes was paying 11,000 euros per month for rent.
The Foundation’s annexes in Alexandria, Odessa, Berlin, London and Washington as well as the branches in Belgrade, Bucharest, Sofia, Tirana, Trieste and Melbourne will be closed until March 31, 2014. The regulation will include a reduction in fixed and recurring costs of operation of the Foundation’s branches through the establishment of honorary, unpaid services by the heads of each department and of course the reduction of rent costs after negotiations or change of location.
Among the plans of the Hellenic Foundation for Culture, is the reconstruction and establishment of new annexes in Beijing, Moscow, Istanbul and Cyprus.
The stakes are high for the Foundation in Greece that is required to redefine its role and mainly be faithful to its mission of promoting Greek culture and spreading the teaching of the Greek language.
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