Story:

Nikos worked for many years driving kids between 6 and 12 years old from the refugee camps (Skaramagkas, Schisto, Eleonas, Eleusina) to their schools and back.

This is the first time I have talked about this, and its story is not happy at all. This one is from Skaramagkas. It belonged to a kid, 7 years old, that had disappeared from Skaramagkas and was eventually found drowned in the sea. Nouri. It really affected me, because I used to drive that kid [to school] every day and bring him back to his parents safely. He drowned in July ‘17.

He had learning difficulties. We don’t know what happened and how Nouri drowned. It’s likely that he was bullied by other kids of the community because of his learning difficulties, or, there was also this rumour that some traffickers basically did it as punishment to set an example, because the kid’s parents hadn’t paid them for the transportation. I don’t know which of the two is true but for many years I’ve been keeping this in my drawer.

It holds great value for me, as a bus driver for six years, and drive the kids back and forth safely, even though anything can happen. Once, the bus crashed into the tent poles and the windows started breaking inside the bus and glass was falling everywhere and I was hugging the kids so that they didn’t get hurt. So when you struggle and try and there is no safe route, when you promise them that you’ll go back in the summer to see them, because I used to go during summer as well, regardless of being a bus driver…

I couldn’t handle it, for a long time I stopped going to Skaramagkas, but the other kids pulled me back. I would take them in the morning, drive them to their schools, to Egaleo, Peristeri, anywhere, and then I would bring them back to the camp. I did this for a long time. Later, I would travel abroad with disabled kids who had interviews at the Embassy, at the Asylum Service, and we’d travel together to their final destination country, which could be Norway, France, Germany, anything. I worked in this field for many years.

For the last two years, I have worked at shelter for underage girls that were victims of abuse and trafficking, and then at a shelter for boys. The gender inequality is insane.