We have a lot of things to organize each week! So we start with a meeting together to think about the activities that we will do. After this, all is ready for a week full of fun!

In the evening some volunteers start with the English lesson. As we are such an international group, children and youngsters are eager to learn English so they can speak with all the volunteers that they meet!

As communication is so important, other volunteers use a Laptop and the Grid program in the evening to teach and talk to children/youngsters.  This communication is based on an eye-sighting program, the Grid. With the grid children/youngsters can select words using their eyes. In this way, children/youngsters that have problems with oral-communication and mobility can use this tool to speak. 

After the learning we normally pick up some children from the different houses and go to the Pikpa playground or to do another fun activities.

In the morning, it is time to wake up with us! We pick up the children and youngsters from their houses and if the weather is nice, we take a long walk around PIKPA with them. Another option is playing in our activity center (Tritos) with whatever they like. We have a music room, a space with toys, costumes, a big trampoline (maybe the favorite of all the children)… They have a lot of options to spend a really good time with us. Is there a better way to wake up? I think no 😉 We do this on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday mornings.

On Tuesday evening we usually do an outing. This is a really nice moment for the children because they have the opportunity of being out of the institution. You can not imagine all the things that we do during our outing during the year. Usually we go to the park, to the cinema, bowling, to have hot chocolate in a coffee shop…

Sometimes we have a big outing like the time that we visited the Acropolis Museum or the Waterpark.

In the morning we do the same as the day before, we pick up the children and youngsters to go for a walk or to go to play in Tritos. But the evening is a little bit different. Normally we do an activity with the children but the activity changes during the year depending on the weather. For example, during the summer we always go to the beach (we have one fantastic beach in Pikpa and all the children love it), in spring and autumn the most popular activities are sports (we have really good basketball players) or gardening (free tomatos for everyone!). In winter, due to the cold and the rain, normally we use our imagination to create funny handcrafts or play board games.

“Cheap potatoes!” “Delicious bananas!”, “Fantastic onions…” Have you heard this? We are at the Λαϊκη market! It is a food market that appears every week in all areas of Athens. And on Thursday morning it is in Glyfada where we visit it each Thursday with our children and youngsters. 

In the market, they learn how to pay with money, they pick the fruits and vegetables of the season, also they have a normalized experience out of Pikpa being linked with the things that people normally do in their daily life.

Once we have the food, we use it to prepare delicious meals in the evening during our cooking workshop. We become authentic Masterchef’s for an evening and we teach the youngsters about cooking and the skills needed to do it (cut, peel, weigh…). When we finish, we enjoy our fantastic dinner together.