Thessaloniki: Axel, Dioni, Pothos – Former stray dogs become “teachers” in schools.
Axel, Dioni and Pothos are three former stray dogs who were abused, brutally beaten, stabbed and shot by human hands, yet managed to fight their fears and stand up again.
The three dogs, with different names, were found in a particularly bad condition and were adopted by the Zo.E.S. team. (Animal Friendly Schools Updates). Now, from next Thursday, October 13, they will become “teachers” themselves. They will enter elementary school classrooms in the municipality of Thessaloniki in order to teach the students of the 5th and 6th grade about unconditional love in the context of an animal welfare program.
With them will be the educator, animal therapist and writer, Katerina Papapostolou, who in 2015 founded the Urban Non-Profit Company Zo.E.S. The start of this specific animal welfare program was made with the special education schools of the municipality of Thessaloniki and now it is the turn of the elementary schools.
“The program officially starts next Thursday, in the presence of the Mayor of Thessaloniki, Konstantinos Zervas. Each week we will visit one or two schools, with the aim of reaching as many classrooms as possible by the end of the year. Because the number of schools in Thessaloniki that operate and partners from Athens are large enough to help “run” the program”, he explained, speaking to the Radio Agency 104.9 FM of APE-MBE.
As he said, the goal of the program is to address the phobias that children have about stray dogs. “By having the dogs go to schools, we dispel their fears. Through discussion, information and the children’s questions, we discuss the harmonious coexistence with animals and the importance of adoption. Stray dogs are our friends,” he said.
After all, Axel, Dioni and Pothos each work with different characteristics of children. For example, Pothos goes where there are wheelchairs because he is trained to sit on children’s arms and loves to ride with them. So does Axel, who may be a big dog, but his innocence dispels the myth that he’s wild and can do harm. Finally, Dioni works more with children who have delinquent or aggressive behavior or who have attention deficit disorder.
In the plans of both the municipality of Thessaloniki and the group Zo.E.S. is, with the completion of the information for the students of the last two grades of primary school, that the animal welfare program should be extended to the “first graders”.
From 2015 until today Zo.E.S. they visited, together with the volunteers, more than 700 schools throughout Greece and informed more than 450,000 students about the harmonious coexistence with animals. Axel, Dioni and Pothos worked alongside children who did not want to go to school or had low self-esteem and achieved small miracles: they transformed the children into a more beautiful version of themselves.