Children who have escaped from difficult situations find refuge in the agricultural schools of the “Ark of the World”
For the children in difficulty, the ones removed from their families with a prosecutor’s order, who have found shelter in the agricultural schools of the “Ark of the World”, there is no longer insecurity in their lives and future but a clear path on solid ground. It is offered to them by the founder of the Ark, Father Antonios Papanikolaou, who breaks the vicious circle of delinquency through their healing contact with nature. That is why the youngest of the agricultural schools of the Ark, in Dimini of Volos, recently received the GENE Global Education Award 2020/2021 of the European Union. It has been operating since 2017 and is an agricultural paradise with an impressive view of the city of Volos and the Pagasitikos gulf, with a farm, orchard, olive grove, vineyards, greenhouse, garden with aromatic plants and herbs, seed bank, but also 17 well-equipped laboratories, including an olive mill, a cheese factory, a winery, a pasta making workshop, a traditional products making workshop, a feed making workshop, a stone mill. The agricultural school in Pogoniani, Ioannina, has been operating since 2015, in a beautiful landscape 800 meters from the Greek-Albanian border, while there are also branches in Chios and Kalamata.
Read more: Kathimerini article (in Greek)
Visit: The Ark of the World