“We arrived in Greece half way through 2017, and we’ve been living in Notara all this time. I have four children under 18, and one who is grown up now.
First of all, we went to City Plaza squat, because my brother had been living there. But they asked us for our government asylum papers, and we didn’t have them so they wouldn’t let us stay. They sent us to Spyro Trikoupi squat, but Spyro Trikoupi was full, so they took our names but told us to try Notara.
After waiting three days, Notara called us and said there was a room. I was really happy to get a room here, because I had heard that the camps were really bad, with a lot of violence. Here people are respectful, and they have rules, such as a silence time for sleeping. People here take a lot of care about children, and there is an assembly every week where we meet together to fix our problems.
Sometimes new families arrive and they don’t feel good because they have heard bad things about living in the squats. So I go to speak with them and tell them not to worry, everything is okay here.”
