Last night the Greek Orthodox Community of Melbourne and Victoria (GOCMV) celebrated the successes of its best and brightest students at its annual awards ceremony.
Five young Greek-Australians, Yianni Kallianis, Yianni Katiforis and Angelique Markos from the GOCMV after-hours school at Doncaster, and Panayiota Papaioannou and Vasiliki Zarkadas from Alphington Grammar School won academic excellence awards for achieving a VCE study score over 40 for Modern Greek.
Yiannis Katiforis, who achieved a study score of 44, one of the highest in the state, said he was satisfied with his results and the GOCMV award.
“I’m pretty happy with that. I mean you’ve always got some doubts and you always think there’s something you could have done better but I can’t complain, I’m pretty happy with that,” he said.
Angelique Markos, who achieved a ENTER score of 92.9 and a study score of 42 for Greek encouraged young Greek-Australians to continue studying the language.
“I think its important not only because of the cultural aspect and because we like to maintain our Greek heritage but also because it does give you a better understanding. I did English language this year, I didn’t do mainstream English and I found that my Greek even helped me with that,” she said.
Katiforis echoed her thoughts. “It is very important that Greek Australian students learn Greek not only to learn the language but also to learn more about their culture and their history and what their ancestors have accomplished,” he said.
The awards are given in the names of former GOCMV teachers Nina Black (Mavrokefalou), Olga Radouleskou and Alexandra Vrahna, as well as former GOCMV Presidents Alexandros Maniakis and Antonis Lekatsas who served the community for many years and played a significant role in furthering the study of Greek language, tradition and culture in Australia.
