Ukrainian children trying to restart their education
Ukrainian children who fled the ongoing war in their country are attempting to restart their interrupted education at a state school in central Athens that opens for the refugees on Saturday mornings.
“It’s not that I don’t like it here, but I want to return to my country, my friends, my relatives,” said 12-year-old Yula, her eyes tearing up. She has been in Athens for a week and came from Kyiv with her mother, siblings and grandmother.
“At least if I knew that everyone was fine, then I would be too,” she added.
The Saturday school was launched in 2011 by the Ukrainian cultural association Trembita. “We hope that soon we will get the approval to operate in the afternoons as well,” the president of the association and director of the Saturday school told Kathimerini.
A total of 12,992 Ukrainian citizens have arrived in Greece since the start of the Russian invasion. One third of them, 4,161, are children, of whom 3,313 are aged 0-13 years old, while 848 are teenagers aged 14-17 years old.
