The Greek Canadian History Project

Mission Statement

The Greek Canadian History Project (GCHP) is an initiative designed and committed to identifying, acquiring, digitizing, preserving, and providing access to primary source materials which reflect the experiences of Canada’s Greek immigrants and their descendants. The collected sources, currently in the hands of private individuals and organizations in the Greek-Canadian community, will be placed in the care of the Clara Thomas Archives & Special Collections of York University Libraries. The Project’s stewards are Dr. Athanasios (Sakis) Gekas, HHF Chair in Modern Greek History at York University, and Christopher Grafos, Ph.D. Candidate in History, York University.

The GCHP plans to be a continued repository for information, accessible for current and future research in broad thematic fields such as social, cultural, and economic practices of Greeks in Canada. We invite individuals to contribute collections of papers, diaries, photographs, books, pamphlets, audio, video, and other materials that will be valuable for research of the Greek-Canadian past. Our goal is to promote the value of personal collections which are often perceived to have little value beyond the life of an individual. The Project will serve to accentuate the value of ‘ordinary’ Greek-Canadians and the importance of preserving their memory.

The Project also seeks to establish partnerships with Greek-Canadian community organizations and individuals who wish to contribute materials to the Project. Objects like yearbooks, meeting minutes, mission statements as well as privately-held collections of community leaders will help to preserve the institutional and associational history of Greeks in Canada (continued, http://archives.library.yorku.ca/gchp/)http://archives.library.yorku.ca/gchp/)