The Children’s House and Self-Education structure is one of the self-organised, horizontal, and autonomous structures of the Community of Squatted Prosfygika on Alexandras Avenue. It’s been active since the spring of 2020, built around the everyday needs, material and psychological, of the neighborhood’s children and their families.
This is a space rooted in the values of libertarian education and hands-on, experience-based learning. It draws inspiration from revolutionary movements and communities of resistance around the world. From the earliest stages of childhood, the structure puts front and center the struggle for access to health and education rights that should be guaranteed but are systematically denied. It aims to meet the needs of children growing up in the community of Prosfygika, creating a space of life, growth, and resistance.
It is more than a childcare space, it’s a vibrant, ever-evolving commons where different lives and stories come together, clash, connect and co-create. It’s also a tool: a way to understand and reflect on the needs, capabilities, challenges, and relationships of the children within their families and within the broader community.
The structure currently operates in two main spaces. The first opened in summer 2020, designed together with the kids, to host daily tutoring sessions, as well as creative workshops and children’s assemblies every Sunday. In September 2023, the second space opened: a self-organised preschool for the neighborhood, focused on early childhood socialisation, building autonomy and exploring both self and the world in a safe, creative way.
In the summer of 2024, we took another step forward, children and teenagers came together to build a playground in the heart of the neighborhood. It wasn’t just a place to play. It was a reclamation of space and ground, a response to the constant repression and attacks from the state. Through care, collective imagination and struggle, we keep shaping our own paths.