A recent donation from Melbourne resident Anastasia Gessa-Liveriadis to her hometown of Ptolemaida has garnered attention in Greek media.
As previously reported in Neos Kosmos, Gessa-Liveriadis hails from the Gessas family, a household name in Ptolemaida. She was married to the late Panagiotis Liveriadis, a philologist, writer, and educational consultant for the Greek Consulate in Melbourne.
Three years ago, Gessa-Liveriadis donated a large 976 sq. m. plot on Epivaton Street in Ptolemaida to Bodossakio Hospital. For reasons that were never disclosed, the hospital did not proceed with development on the property. Now, Gessa-Liveriadis has chosen to donate the land to the Municipality of Eordaia, which plans to build a kindergarten. Once complete, the new facility will be named in her honour.
The Greek Australian expressed her long-standing desire to contribute to her birthplace while reflecting on her life in a Greek television interview.
“I have faced many challenges—losing my parents young, the Second World War, the Occupation, and the Civil War. I graduated from high school in Ptolemaida, and though our family home no longer stands, this plot remains. The land used to be larger, but part of it was sold. I received the remaining portion from my siblings after our father’s sudden passing,” she said.
Gessa-Liveriadis also shared what led her to emigrate.
“I left Greece in search of better opportunities. After completing high school, I pursued studies and work in Athens and other regions. I arrived in Australia alone with minimal English, but I went on to study, build a career, and eventually work as an educator in higher education. For about 20 years, I would return to Greece every summer.”
She completed her studies at the Athens School of Health, where she graduated as a Visiting Nurse and Sister. Since the late 1950s, she has resided in Melbourne where she graduated from the College of Nursing, Australia, with a Diploma in Nursing Education, and earned a Bachelor and Master of Education from La Trobe University in Melbourne. Through further professional and academic development, she became a pioneering figure in Australian nursing education, especially in Mental Health and the integration of nursing training into the higher education system.
Specifically, she served as a Senior Nursing Education Officer and Director of the Hospital School of Psychiatric Nursing. After nursing education was transferred to higher education, she continued as a Senior Lecturer and later as Head of the Department of Community and Mental Health at the Phillip School of Nursing, now PMIT University.
Upon her retirement, she returned to her love of poetry and literature. A few years ago, she published her first book, Tasia: A ‘Privileged’ Life, and she recently completed a new memoir.
“I wrote this book in English, but I am now translating it into Greek,” she told Neos Kosmos.
