You Are What U Do - Kostas Kouvidis

“You Are What U Do / Kostas Kouvidis” is a nonprofit organization established in 2008 by friends and relatives of the great Greek jazz drummer Kostas Kouvidis (1976 – 2007). Kostas’s life came to an abrupt and premature end when a typical eighteen year old aggressive Greek driver, having already violated the speed limit, violated a red light and crashed with ferocity on the car that Kostas was boarding (as a passenger).

The name of our organisation was borrowed from a phrase that Kostas, himself a very talented jazz musician, had inscribed on his snare drum:  “You Are What U Do Not What U Think U Are.”

Amongst the aims of our organization is organizing an, annual, international jazz meeting in Heraklion- Crete (Kostas’s birthplace), issuing CDs and DVDs, providing scholarships to talented young musicians etc. Eventually we would like to transform the international jazz meeting to an international festival, centered around music but in no sense restricted to it.

The other main aim of our organization is to promote public awareness towards car crashes and aggressive driving and participate actively in the struggle to modify the existing legal framework. Since March 2009 our organization has been affiliated with FEVR (European Federation of Road Traffic Victims  - www.fevr.org).

The Founding Members are:

Dr George Kouvidis, radiologist, Athens

Dr Ismini Tsoutsia – Kouvidi, psychiatrist, Athens

Mr Minas Sifakis, Physicist, Heraklion, Crete

Prof Alexis Benos, Associate Professor of Social Medicine, Aristotle University, Thessaloniki

Mr Demosthenes Kouvidis, publisher, Athens

Ms Panagiota Maniou, sociologist, Athens

 Contact: You Are What U Do / Kostas Kouvidis

 Iossif Damaskinou 13, 114 71 Athens

 e mail: gkouvidis@gmail.com   tel: 210 3458989, 6971542433

 website: www.kostaskouvidis.com

 myspace: www.myspace.com/internationaljazzmeetingkostaskouvidis