A new cultural festival founded by local students with the support of Sussex Innovation, to be held across Brighton this Saturday (15th October) will celebrate Greek art, music, food and sport. The day’s events will include an art exhibition under the auspices of the Cypriot High Commissioner to the UK, Euripides L. Evriviades, who is visiting the city to formally open proceedings.

The inaugural All Day Greek Festival presented by Cyta UK has been curated by the Brighton Greeks Organisation, and organised with the full support of Hellenic societies at the Universities of Sussex and Brighton, and a number of local and international sponsors.The money raised from a series of events taking place at venues across the city will be put towards two scholarships of £2000, for one Greek and one Cypriot student to attend academic institutions in Brighton and the rest of the UK.

The Brighton Greeks Organisation was founded in 2014, and is dedicated to the mission of “creating a home away from home” by connecting the Greek and Cypriot diaspora, organising events and cultural activities as well as providing a resource for housing, academic and job opportunities.

In June of this year, the organisation’s co-founder Andreas Georgiades, a student at the University of Sussex, received £2000 from the Santander Junior Associate Entrepreneurship Bursary to support the project. The competition judges were “hugely impressed” with the initiative and commitment demonstrated by Andreas and his co-founder Marios Petri, a graduate of the University of Brighton, to establish partnerships with stakeholders regionally, nationally and internationally.

The centrepiece of the festival will see a concert from the popular Cypriot artist Alkinoos Ioannides, who will give a unique performance at the Brighton Dome Corn Exchange to commence his Small Suitcase tour, playing songs from the album he dedicated to “both those forced to leave their homeland and those who feel their homeland has deserted them”.

As well as supporting the Hellenic community in Brighton and further afield, the festival’s organisers are seeking to promote and preserve Greek culture, tradition, history and language – and to that end, local residents of all nationalities are warmly invited to participate and find out more.

The team hope to extend the concept to other regions around the UK, and representatives of university Hellenic societies from across the country will be travelling to Brighton for this inaugural event.

“Lots of people, especially the Brighton Greeks team, have put in a lot of hard work to help organise this festival of Hellenic culture, and we’re all looking forward to a day of celebration,” said the co-founders. “Our mission for Brighton Greeks is to promote and preserve Greek culture, while offering an opportunity to the next generation, in the great tradition of Greek scholarship. This festival is another step towards achieving those goals.”