ATHENS — Two groups of refugee students at the non-formal education centres operated by the Arsis organisation on the islands of Kos (KEDU) and Leros (LEDU) won first place in the pan-European technology and programming competition "Meet & Code".

Their project, entitled "My story", excelled among 1,750 entries from 35 countries. For its creation, 14 students aged 9-17 who study at the two centres collaborated and used the Scratch platform to present digital narratives of their journey and the things that impressed them in their countries of origin, as well as the cities they visited before reaching their final destination: from Kebab in Iran to the bazaars in Turkey and the antelopes of Namibia to the castle in Leros and the natural landscape in Kos.

Starting in Syria, Palestine, Afghanistan and Angola, the children talked about their homelands, but also about the countries they passed through, while searching the internet for information about these places.

Refugee children often refuse to participate in activities where they are asked to describe their experience, because they do not want to remember, the coordinator of KEDU, Xenia Hadjidavid, said in a statement to the Athens-Macedonian News Agency (ANA).

"In order to find a friendly context for them in this particular competition, we asked them to look at their journey from a positive angle, to focus on the positive images that they retained from every place they arrived at," she added.