ABOUT PARTNER

 The Partner Institution, Milos Island

The Milos Conference Center - George Eliopoulos

Milos is an Island of volcanic origin the Southern Aegean, the Cyclades, with a rich history in the Prehistoric and Hellenistic period. It is known for various important monuments, like the Ancient City of Fylakopi (British Museum), the very early dated Christian Catacombs or the famous Venus of Milos, nowadays in the Louvre Museum, Paris. Today Milos is a popular holiday destination, but has also mining activities due to its geological wealth.

Mewcat, the Educational Women's Collaboration for Activities in Tourism, was founded in 1990 as women's initiative to support and provide education in remote regions like Milos Island. Since then, Mewcat has been involved in the development of informal education and vocational training strategies for geographical disadvantaged regions, in the improvement of e-education and e-inclusion. It specializes in the development and production of learning material adapted to the needs of and requirements of the tourism industry. In particular Mewcat aims at media and course productions in the fields of language learning, the preservation of cultural heritage and environment, the creation of green tourism and sustainable forms of tourism, the improvement of tourism services and intercultural communication. In this regard Mewcat had been carrying out numerous European co-funded projects targeting at media productions, awareness raising activities, the organization of events, conferences and training courses, like Greek Language courses for tourists or Art classes and exhibitions.

The George Eliopoulos Conference center, where the meeting was held, is housed in an old kaolin processing plant, built in 1925, which is overlooking the gulf of Milos. It is an excellent sample of its period's industrial architecture, abandoned and derelict for many years, it was falling apart. Today  the ruinhas been  fully restored with high aesthetical standards and respect to its original architecture. The edifice is used as the home for conferences, cultural and other events, solving thus one of the Island's perennial problems, the lack of modern large multipurpose halls.
The Conference Center plays a major role in further upgrading the Island's cultural life, since it hosts not only conferences, conventions and symposia, but theatrical, musical and other artistic events as well. At the same time the Center assists in attracting to the island, alternative high quality types of tourism.

The modern Conference Center is a restaurated kaolin processing plant, witnessing Milos' mining history