{"id":21494,"date":"2015-11-01T16:43:54","date_gmt":"2015-11-01T14:43:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/staging.ikaria.ch\/?p=21494"},"modified":"2024-04-06T16:10:40","modified_gmt":"2024-04-06T14:10:40","slug":"my-blog-as-a-useful-tool-in-times-of-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ursula.ikaria.ch\/en\/my-blog-as-a-useful-tool-in-times-of-crisis\/","title":{"rendered":"My blog as a useful tool in times of crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Aias<\/span><\/div>

It’s only gradually that I realize the power and reach of this website! It is my most useful tool and my strongest weapon in a crisis.<\/h2>\n

It all started quite harmlessly. Since 1986 I lived in Ikaria, in a 300-year-old stone house, without electricity and without running water. A room for the whole family, this is where people lived and slept, there were toilets behind the house, and cooking was done by the fireplace. It was the childhood home of my husband Pantelis’ family. For them everything was completely normal, that’s how Pantelis grew up, his parents and all generations before. This was new territory for me.<\/p>\n

How it all began…<\/h1>\n

I come from Eastern Switzerland, St. Gallen, city, born and raised, Swiss parents. I was young and in love, I felt like Robinson Crusoe, everything was new to me, strange and fascinating.<\/p>\n

After 11 years in Ikaria without electricity or running water in our home, I was asked to submit a 200-page thesis in 1997 for further training as a life companion, today we call it a coach. So on one of my visits to St. Gallen I went into a shop and asked for a typewriter. The salesman looked at me skeptically and said, \u201cTypewriter? Young woman, what century do you live in? Nowadays you buy a laptop!\u201d Me: \u201cYes, but there is no electricity where I live.\u201d \u201cFor God\u2019s sake, where do you live?!?\u201d<\/p>\n

So the seller convinced me and I traveled back to Ikaria with a brand new, then still huge, heavy tow top. I had no idea. All I knew was which button to turn it on and off again. Back in Ikaria, in Raches, there was only one young man who had a computer, Michalis, he was my whole hope! He had promised to explain the laptop to me. So I drove to him. He opened the box. \u201cWow! Great! From Switzerland, expensive thing!\u201d Read it to start up, pressed the keys a little. Closed the lid \u201cSorry, it\u2019s all in German, you\u2019ll have to see for yourself how you get along!\u201d<\/p>\n

So I sat there and spent nights trying to figure out how my laptop worked in the village where there was electricity. There was no internet anyway. So I just used it as a typewriter.<\/p>\n

2011 My online debut<\/h1>\n

When Ursula’s Ikaria went online for the first time in 2011, everything was still very modest and simple. Back then I received a lot of emails from friends and acquaintances always asking the same questions. Martin<\/a> was a programmer in Zurich and so I asked him to set up a blog for me so that everyone could read everything. Since I always like to take the shortest route, this seemed like the easiest solution to me. Of course I had no idea!<\/p>\n

The idea: Martin in Switzerland builds a scaffolding, I in Ikaria fill it with content. I was an absolute greenhorn! I had never managed a website in my life! I had no idea how time-consuming and labor-intensive it all would be. Without Martin’s help this website would never have been created! I had to work hard for everything. How to set up a page, how to incorporate photos, how to link the pages and so on and so forth. It took me an endless amount of time to do everything and it was quite a bit of tinkering.<\/p>\n

But nonetheless, I slowly started to develop a taste for it. Suddenly I could reach a lot of people at once. How many? I didn’t notice that until later. Back then, I wrote primarily for my family and friends. To tell them how I live here and how I’m doing. And to make their journey to me easier. There was nothing in German about this on the internet. I was soon surprised to see that more and more visitors were reading my blog, from all German-speaking countries. So there seemed to be an obvious need! Readers started emailing me asking for more travel information. So I always got new input for new topics.<\/p>\n<\/div>

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\"Relaunch<\/a><\/span><\/div>

A useful tool in a crisis<\/h1>\n

When the crisis broke out, I received countless questions: How can we help? I suddenly realized that a blog like this could also be a helpful tool! We could raise money and support families in need! Said and done! But very soon I realized that it wasn’t that easy. Back then, no one wanted to admit that they were in financial trouble. Nobody really wanted to admit it. So how could we support families in need without losing face and hurting their pride?<\/p>\n

I was desperately looking for solutions because there was no shortage of willing donors! (A big evharisto to everyone!). At that time, my daughter Selina was just finishing high school. As she said goodbye, a teacher jokingly said to her: \u201cYou’re doing well, you can go to university now.\u201d For the young people, university means emigrating from Ikaria, as there is no university here. \u201cBecause next year we and the students will have to bring heating oil<\/a> from home if we don\u2019t want to sit in frozen classrooms. The state is bankrupt!\u201d When Selina told me this, I had found my first donation project!<\/p>\n

My first fundraiser in 2012<\/h1>\n

In 2012, less than a year since the blog was born, we launched the first call for donations for heating oil<\/a> for the schools in Raches<\/a>! Why only Raches? Because on Ikaria they are the only schools in the mountains; all the others are near the coast and therefore in a milder climate.<\/p>\n<\/div>

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