METAdrasi’s classes started in the area of Mavrovouni in Lesvos, with great enthusiasm, at the beginning of last week. The refugee children who live there, arrived filled with joy and impatience to attend Greek, English and Mathematics lessons.

It is METAdrasi’s firm position that children should get out of the camps to attend school just like all the other children. And while, as soon as the measures for the pandemic eased a little, we managed to get our students back to the classrooms of METAdrasi’s non-formal education centre in Mytilene, at the new camp of Mavrovouni, the difficulties remain: at the moment, it is estimated that there are 1,200 school-age children living in Mavrovouni; yet, it is not possible to serve all of them outside the camp. Precisely because we do not want a single child to be excluded from education, for the first time, we started classes in Mavrovouni, with the ultimate goal of course to enable all children to attend school outside the camp, as soon as possible.

The education activity in Mavrovouni, marks the beginning of METAdrasi’s cooperation with UNICEF on the island of Lesvos, where METadrasi has a presence with education activities since 2018.