I met Tandem as a prospective chaperone for two people for a summer camp in Penteli (2009) and since then I became a member and part of it… and she became part of my identity. I went through the stage of volunteering, participating in the Board, coordinating the European Voluntary Service Programme (2014 – 2018), organizing activities and activities with children and young people, distance… and continuity! The journey within Tandem teaches me -still- the meaning of “together”, “working together” and the appreciation in the value of the Human being.

Evangelia is a graduate of the “Marketing & Advertising” department of the School of Management and Economics of the Athens University of Technology. For the last two years she has been attending two postgraduate programs: the Master’s degree in “Human Rights and Migration Studies” at the University of Macedonia and the Master’s degree in “Sociology”, direction “Social Exclusion and Human Rights” at the Panteion University of Athens.

  From the first time I visited and institution for children with disabilities as a volunteer back in 2000 until today, my involvement with mainly children but also with adults with disabilities and the effort to promote and support their rights has become my way of life. In 2007 we co-created our organization Tandem with the aim of employing and empowering children and young people living at the Voula Annex for the Rehabilitation and Rehabilitation of Children with Disabilities (known as PIKPA Voula). The Tandem route is essentially for me a route of learning and discovering, sometimes with tiring hills that lead nowhere and sometimes with pleasant routes that reward effort!

Katerina is a graduate of TEFAA with a postgraduate degree in the inclusion of children with disabilities in physical education classes. She has worked in integration programs for people with mental disorders (PSYCHARGOS), as a European Voluntary Service Programme coordinator, youth worker and mentor of volunteers (Youth in Action Program), responsible for the design of educational inclusive programs. She has also volunteered in Greece and abroad. Since 2012 she is also involved in non-formal education where in cooperation with various institutions she trains school students and teachers, mainly on issues related to human rights.

   I came into contact with the institutions and the reality of the children living in them as a camp counselor in the summer of 2005. Tandem was born in 2007 out of the need to systematize the offer to the children and young people living initially in the former PIKPA Voula and through the years in other child protection and chronically ill institutions. Since then I have been contributing as much as I can to the goals of the organization with the main goal of becoming as volunteers unnecessary for the system.

Patty is a graduate of the Department of Philosophy, Pedagogy and Psychology of the University of Athens and holds a Master’s degree in Special Education from the University of Athens. She has worked as a de-institutionalization program coordinator at the former Lechane KEPP in collaboration with Lumo and the Institute of Child Health. She has worked as a consultant on Child Protection and de-mineralization issues and was a member of the Board of the Social Welfare Centre of Attica from 2015 to 2019. She is a foster mother of disabled children.

I met Tandem by chance when I was looking for an internship opportunity after completing my studies in 2019. Meeting the children and young people of the former PIKPA Voula, as well as the vision and philosophy of Tandem, inspired me to become a volunteer for one year through the European Solidarity Corps program. Since the summer of 2021 I have been working at Tandem as a European Solidarity Corps project coordinator, supporting European volunteers.
In a multicultural team we try to bring colourful impulses to the daily life of children and young people living in the institution.

Lena has studied Social Work and Pedagogy at the Free University of Berlin.

 Tandem came into my life first through the words of a teenager at the P.O.S.G.C.A.M.A. camp where I was working in 2015, and then because of my need to frame my volunteer work with a vision. I now work at Tandem as a coordinator of local volunteer(s) and my dream is that one day the system will fill all the gaps that volunteers are currently asked to fill, so that our existence is no longer necessary.

Christina is a graduate of the Social Work Department of the University of West Attica. Since 2016 she has been working in the field of non-formal education and in the last years she has been writing articles, mainly on human rights and inclusion.

  I came in contact with Tandem as a prospective chaperone for two children with disabilities at the P.O.S.G.C.A.D.A. camp in the summer of 2016 and then came back as a volunteer in 2018. Although I had no contact with the disability field until then, my involvement with the organisation within the camp was enough to motivate me to get more actively involved and in the process change my way of thinking and living.

Katerina is a graduate of the Department of History – Archaeology of the University of Ioannina and has teaching skills in Greek Sign Language and Braille. Since 2020 she has been implementing the Tandem tutoring program, which currently has more than 20 teenagers residing at P.A.A.P.A.B.

I met Tandem in the summer of 2009. I had just returned from a volunteer work (ECS) program at a day center for people with disabilities and was trying to understand why my active coexistence in this community had an inescapable attraction for me. Since then, years of sharing, creative work, joy and disappointments, but of deep and meaningful relationships with the children who reside at the Voula Annex for the Rehabilitation and Rehabilitation of Children with Disabilities have passed. From 2010 to 2014 I had the great pleasure of being the coordinator of Tandem’s volunteer network and its legal representative until today.

Gregory is a graduate of the School of Agricultural Technology and has participated in a European Volunteer Program at a Day Centre for disabled people in Valencia, Spain. For consecutive years he was a chaperone in camps for disabled people organised by POSGKAMEA. From 2017 to date she has been working with organizations in the field of accessibility services in art spaces.