About

SIZhellas stands for the Systemic Innovation Zone-Greece which brings together Greeks and internationals who are imagining and creating the new ways of working and living through this time of incredible change known as “the crisis.” So we are reclaiming the word crisis from “being a problem” to the original Hellenic meaning of krisis which means taking a stand or making a decision.

We at the SIZ are witnessing and living the incredible stories and movements of people on the ground, in their communities, across this country and beyond who are birthing the new systems, ones that return us to the meaning of democracy, where citizens self-organize around what is needed and what we dream possible in service to the Commons.

These stories, this courage, these actions of ordinary citizens who are creating the future now, are the threads of a new narrative that is emerging from places where the currents systems are collapsing or deteriorating – they are simply showing how unsustainable and interconnected they and we are. So SIZhellas is helping to map a new set of stories around the question:

What if Greece/Hellas is the key to turning the page from crisis to potential, for not only Greece but as a beacon of civil society innovation for all of Europe?

*Hellas/Ελλάς is Greek for Greece.

IN HIS OWN WORDS: Odysseas Valentzas talks about and introduces the SIZ:

Odysseas is a 27-year old Greek who decided to stay in Greece to help build new possibilities with  Greek citizens of all ages, and in particular, young people for whom the unemployment rate hovers around 60% by inviting them to participate in the making of new systems. He was part of the social protests in Syntagma Square and is on the Core Team of SIZhellas. Inspired by working with participatory methodologies, he has taken this to co-founded with his best friend, Nikos Rovaris, a social enterprise called Process Makers.