 Hi everyone. Welcome to another episode of DMTV. This is Faces of DM episode again, a series exploring the people making up our movement where we discuss their inspirational stories and why and how they took the step from citizen to activism and to politics. And here tonight I'm with Dimos Joachim. I hope I said that well. Welcome Dimos. Thank you very much for the invitation. So yes, my name is Dimos Joachim. I'm from the coordination Cyprus or DM25. Welcome again Dimos. We are going to speak about the DM organization in a country from scratch. You know how what are the first steps? How you know can you get involved as you did from the example of the nice island of Cyprus where I haven't been yet but I hope I'll travel one day hopefully and we can actually meet each other in person. And so through Dimos story we're going to explore this a little bit how also you out there can maybe you know start organizing for DM25 in your country. But first of all Dimos maybe you can tell us a little bit about you. Where are you exactly on Cyprus and what's your background? I came from Cyprus particularly from Limassol. Limassol is the second big city in Cyprus. My profession is acoustic consultant and one of my main hobbies is politics. That's why DM. Nice and can you tell us a little bit why did you choose DM? How did you you know get to know about DM and how when did you become a member? I learned about DM since its birth due to the fact that I followed and supported Yanis Varoufakis and his disobedient fellowship after Greg Spring and historical win of no in referendum of 2015 in Greece. However I more actively followed it after the creation of Mera25 in Greece. I decided to become a member of DM25 when I decided to basically abandon the personal political action and join a collective political action which apparently is the most effective and leftist let's say way to politicize and benefit the people. Following political radical shift DM covers almost totally my political view and belief and so almost a year ago I joined this brilliant movement and I feel I gained comrades from Cyprus and all over the Europe. Lastly I'm really glad and excited that I found a political house to political express me after a few years of looking for. Great thanks and thanks for the kind words also for the movement. Maybe before we go into your activity in Cyprus can you tell us a little bit about the political situation on Cyprus because I think unfortunately you know you're a smaller nation in Europe and maybe not all the people out there are aware of what's going on. The political situation on Cyprus is that we have a lack of a pure leftist party. We have many right wing parties. We have a social democratic party let's say. There is a green party but a pure leftist political movement or party does not exist now in Cyprus. That's why I think we believe as coordination Cyprus that we can cover this gap and express the people the many basically. How did you start the activity for DN25 in Cyprus? What was kind of the first step that you did after getting involved and trying to build up something on the national level? The beginning of the recent intensive activity for DNTI in Cyprus was basically electronically through our members area forum where I decided to post and ask if there is any active groups or active members here in our island. Then I got a response. One comrade from Mera, Greece living in Cyprus and DN comrade were responded. We arranged a physical meeting and so our recent local story began. Thanks. I hope everybody could understand everything because your connection was not ideal for the first part of your question but I think I can summarize by you got in touch with other people just reached out. I think in DN we have this members area that all if you are there also joining then you become a member you have the possibility to reach out to other members to meet them and then to start something start on a small level by a few people and then make things grow. And also Demos mentioned Mera 25 which is our political parties which is already quite established in Greece so this of course helps a little bit for people on Cyprus to also know about DN 25 and Mera 25. What was good about this experience or how did you experience that the process of getting in touch with people and starting to do some small actions? I can see that it's a beautiful political experience based on three facts. The first fact is that it's a try from the beginning growing from bottom from grassroots and getting greater and greater. Second fact we can that we democratically propose and decide for everything as a movement as a european movement and third one that we struggle through this movement together with other european comrades at the same time in different countries but towards the same political targets according to our common ideology especially here in Cyprus as you said with our Greek Mera 25 companions where our collaboration and struggle are common I can say are almost it's almost one and actually this is the DM spirit acting from different countries towards the same scope towards the same political actions. Yes I got I got nothing to add to that what have been our hours and your especially your major achievements so far what did you do in terms of actions what did you organize so far on Cyprus? First of all I think that our biggest achievement is the existence of DM 25 boys in Cyprus. Morally, during the last five months of our existence as a as a collectivity summarizing we can say organizing our two outdoor demonstrations with comrades of Mera, Greece one was for the public health system and the other it was against the war in Ukraine more of a taking part in other outdoor demonstrations for an environmental protected area in Cyprus for Julian Assange for freedoms during pandemic again a fascistic attack in the leftist event here in Limassol against queries and others and moreover other achievements we think our social media accounts have been set up and keep updated articles have been published for different local political issues and finally I can say meetings with progressive persons and other collectivities in order to you know communicate and grow our movement or our collaborations with other familiar movements progressive and leftist movements. Great and I think this is absolutely the kind of groundwork that one needs to lay to you know then make the next steps so well done and how is your structure do you really regularly meet in person more in zoom and how does it work how do you prepare your actions and your activities? Basically during the first months of our existence winter or early spring times we were meeting electronically via zoom in a regular base let's say every three weeks where we're discussing the political issues and organizing our political actions and positions and last two months we have started to meet physically last week for example we conducted a meeting in Nicosia and we are planning during the next month to meet up in other cities as well zoom meetings have the advantage of space that we can easier meet up from different cities because okay Cyprus is a small island but the distance between two cities it's about an hour duration but physical meetings of course are better for us as comrades and due to the fact that we are social beings and I think natural interaction and body language facial expressions human response much better to our ideology and political approach as progressives especially when we are meeting in the roads of struggles yes I agree and I think it's something that we all missed greatly during the pandemic if you're in Cyprus or any other country reach out to us so we can organize a meeting with local DMRs the address where you can always reach us is volunteer dm25.org and we can connect you to the right people to conclude this a nice short overview of how to start a DM organization in a country with the example of Cyprus let's look into the future what keeps you together and what are your plans what are the next steps that you are looking forward to take on Cyprus in our opinion the ideology and the political direction so I think our common vision in real democracy in international solidarity in social and climate justice and interest for the many not the few and against the oligarchy I think those values those political and social values and targets keep us together we are planning an green event regarding an environment with main speaker and an MP from Mera 25 Greece second we are planning a campaign for the right to housing and against high costing and 30 to spread the movement of DM into the turkeys turkeys Cypriot side of the island our plans are to grow our collectivity of DM in Cyprus increase our impact in the political status in Cyprus by establishing us as the real progressive and leftist party in Cyprus in order to support the society in order to support the many in order to support the environment locally and European wise thanks I think this sounds great I think everyone wishes you all the best of luck for for achieving what you're planning and what you're setting out to do I hope we will be in constant touch and you know work together on our common dream thank you for joining and giving us these insights Demos thank you very much for the imitation thank you for the for the concentration and company exactly and you are there if you want to join and also start DM 25 from scratch in your country like Demos is doing or has been doing in Cyprus you can go on dm25.org slash join join us contact us under the address of volunteer dm25.org if you have any questions and yeah as Demos said Caribbean and let's let's go