A group of refugees and asylum seekers mostly Africans have started an online petition requesting the government of south Cyprus to start providing long-term free Greek language courses.

The petition’s organisers say that they want to learn Greek in order to better integrate in the Cypriot society and be able to get better jobs.

We kindly request to the Ministry of Education and Culture in Cyprus to provide free Greek language course for one year to the refugees and Asylum seekers because we have a Greek language problem, the organisers say.
Even the refugees those came to this country 5 years ago cannot speak the Greek language.

 They add that it’s very difficult for them to get highly-skilled jobs without speaking the language as “all companies prefer to give the better jobs” to people who can speak Greek and can easily communicate with staff and clients.

Find the petition here.

Sourced from In-Cyprus