The Ikarian Centre (Greek language and Art Association) is a small enterprise which is focusing in the promotion of the Greek language within the inter-cultural modern world. The Centre was established by M. Kavouriaris* and continue the tradition of the summer Greek language courses for foreigners that take place on the island of Ikaria since 1995. The courses are indented to anyone who would like to improve or start with the Greek language. They are also indented to the interpreters and translators who wish to add Greek in their languages or who already work with the Greek language.

Our main target is the inter-cultural approach and the communication between people with a different cultural background. For this reason, during each course we focus in communication between the students and between the students and the locals. Through this procedure we try to transform the participation in each course to a cultural experience.

For the same reason emphasis is given recently in the “parallel courses”. During a parallel course a group of Greek students learn a foreign language (I.e. Spanish) and at the same time a national group speaking the “other language” ( in our example Spanish) learn Greek. After the lessons, participants from both national groups have the opportunity to meet each-other, to exchange opinions and to practice the language they learn.

A parallel course will take place during August 2009 on the island of Samos between Greeks and Turks (www.yourglc.com). The course is supported by the prefecture of Samos and the municipality of Vathi (Samos).

The Centre’s headquarters in picturesque Arethousa on Ikaria is regularly hosting artists in artist residency programmes. In the past the Centre has organised a “panting festival” for the people of Evdilos with the support of the City of Evdilos (Ikraria). During this “painting festival” Tom Campbell from Toronto’s school of fine art thought draw and basic elements of painting to anyone who was interesting to participate. Tom Campbell (www.tom-campbell.net) is hosting by the Centre every spring since 2002.

Our future actions include the development of a series of on-line Greek language courses via the Internet as well as a text book for learning Greek as a foreign language.

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*Michael Kavouriaris was born in Athens at 1966 and studied biology at the university of Patras. At 1995 he established the first summer Greek language programme on the island of Ikaria, homeland of his father. Main position between his interests takes the dialogue between cultures and the fight against nationalism, racism and xenophobia. With his little forces and using as a tool his profession tries to contribute for archiving this aim.