“Welcome!
We stay safe!
We return to METAdrasi!“

With this message written on the board we welcomed, on Monday, May 25, after two and a half months of absence from the classrooms, our first, teenage students at the Non-Formal Education Centers in Chios and Lesvos, as well as in Athens.

Of course, during this difficult time, we didn’t lose contact with our students. METAdrasi’s teachers gave a real fight, either through distance learning or by distributing educational material at the hotspots in Lesvos and Chios, so as not to rule out a single student from the educational process.

And now that the time to return has finally arrived, the children sat back on their desks with a huge smile on their faces, showing us in every way how much they had missed this regularity!

Our first concern was to make sure that all safety measures are strictly respected: we rearranged the classrooms for the necessary physical distancing; with the valuable help of our interpreters, we prepared information leaflets and instructions we distributed to all our students; we made sure that the classrooms and the premises of the educational centers are cleaned daily.

The first class started with a discussion on the new procedures to be followed by everyone, such as measuring everyone’s temperature with contactless thermometers before entering the classrooms and the frequent use of antiseptic placed in every classroom. Already from the first lesson we showed our students how to make masks with colourful cotton fabrics so that everyone can have their own mask.

This Monday, we look forward to welcoming our younger students. The messages we receive from them on a daily basis, show us how much they are looking forward to getting back to classes and, from our side, we are equally eager to see them again!