Today, December 20th, is Ovi’s big day! Birthday. Eleven (11) years! Eleven years full of adventures, good and bad times, but most importantly always here a defender of democracy and free speech.
It is hard to explain how we survived these eleven years without any funding and only principals. Sometimes it doesn’t make sense even to us, especially since most of the magazines that started the same period with us or they had already started when we entered internet, – and we are talking about magazines with funds and serious support – don’t exist anymore. They are not even history, they are forgotten.
![](https://realovi.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/image-104.png?w=283)
Ovi magazine on the other side is still here, following exactly the same principals since day one, working the same way, always low profile without help and strange attachments and always loyal to its readership.
Actually talking with a friend the other day he told me that eleven years with daily presence and involvement to contemporary issues the way we do is too much for any kind of magazine, print – on line or anything else. But …who counts? The only thing that interest us at the moment is planning our next moves and get ready to face new challenges.
And there are challenges. Democracy is in serious trouble all around the world and the economic problems are just the peak of the iceberg. Marine Le Pen is here and I’m afraid she’s not going to go soon. Donald Trump is here and there are plenty around him to replace him if he goes and to be honest I have no idea who is worse. Timo Soini is government in Finland and Nikos Michaloliakos salutes the swastika in Greece. Viktor Orbán of Hungary keeps showing us that Nazism, racism and prejudice is strong and alive and that before I move to Africa or Asia.
On its 11th year Ovi seems more necessary than ever. Now it is time for us to stand, really stand for democracy and culture and I’m afraid the enemy is getting stronger every day.
Your support is important for many reasons and your contribution valuable.
A big thank you is in order for all these people from all around the world that contribute day after day to Ovi magazine with their articles, their drawings, illustrations, fiction, photographs with their believes and thoughts.
A big thank you to everybody who reads Ovi and to this so loyal readership all these years.
Last and not least we thank all these people who support our social media campaigns by sharing our posts and digital posters. The message is clear, democracy – freedom – education – work for all. Thank you all.
This time we thought to celebrate our birthday in a bit different and very Ovi way. So we are publishing a book “The Refugee Tree”, written by four beautiful ladies, Katerina Charisi – Gordana Mudri – Shia Perrou – Natasa Tsitsiridaki, the ladies’ fight club of Ovi, and it is about refugees. Another huge issue that has unveiled the darkest side of the democratic west.
Please download the book here and join these ladies in their passion and fight.
For one more time a big thank you to all of you who are part of the Ovi Team, despite small family arguments, we all have the same aims. A big thank you to the Ovi readership for all the support and please don’t forget, now we need to be united more than any other time and next year is going to be very critical not for Ovi but for democracy all around the world.
*****************************************************
It is a tradition for Ovi magazine for our birthday to invite one of the contributors to write an editorial. For this year we chosen the newest member of the Ovi Team, Mrs Gordana Mudri. Thank you Gordana.
*****************************************************
Today a new cycle starts for the Ovi project with the addition of the Ovi Greece blog which will host articles and news in Greek for the Greek readers. It has been an ambition from the beginning to create a chain of blogs with different languages. It took us 11 years but …better late than never. You can see the Ovi Greece blog HERE!
*****************************************************
Από σήμερα ξεκινάει και το Ovi Greece για τους Έλληνες αναγνώστες του Ovi magazine. Είναι ένας κύκλος που είχαμε σκοπό να ξεκινήσει πριν από πολλά χρόνια και να επεκταθεί και σε άλλες γλώσσες. Τώρα τα καταφέραμε στα ελληνικά. Κάλιο αργά παρά ποτέ, δεν λέμε στην Ελλάδα; Το Ovi Greece θα το βρείτε ΕΔΩ!