Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

As a lot of you know I'll be at the London Marathon this year, Sunday April 21st, in an attempt to complete the 42.2km course. 

I have to confess that I was quite optimistic when I first signed up for this, thinking that my fitness would be sufficient to take me through training and over the line on the big day – I even went as far as setting an aggressive time to challenge me even more. How naive was I…..With a week to go this optimism has been replaced by humility and my respect for Kenyan athletes has increased manifold. A completion time target no longer is on my agenda and my knees and I have come to the conclusion that this will be the one and only marathon race I’ll ever attempt in my lifetime. My goal now is to simply finish!

 

However I intend to make the most of it and use this opportunity to support a very special charity whilst also help to raise awareness of autism, a condition that affects so many people but is still relatively unknown.

 

Some of you may not know this but I have a younger brother, Alexi, who from a very young age was diagnosed with autism. He’s now a 25 year old man and lives in Greece with my parents who have spent his entire life loving him and giving the best possible opportunities they can offer. Alexi will be the motivating factor in my race and I’m sure it will give me the extra bit of oomph I need to drag my legs over the line.

 

Autism is a spectrum disorder which effectively means that even though people that have the condition share a lot of common characteristics, they can be very unique in terms of capability, needs and preferences. As such, any educational framework needs to be adaptable to the child’s individuality. This is where charities such as Ambitious about Autism come in and through their invaluable efforts give children with autism the best possible conditions to achieve the maximum in life.

 

Ambitious about Autism is a charity that was founded by families just like mine; families that had just recently been told that their child was diagnosed with autism but were faced with a world that was not particularly autism friendly. They realised that getting the right services, support and education for their children would not be a straight forward battle, and it would be up to them to kick off an effort to achieve the level of care and education that their children deserved. So they set out to setup a school not only for their own children, but for the wider need. This is how TreeHouse School was born, a school which started with 4 pupils on a part-time basis in a gym back in 1997, to now being a state of the art building that has more than 85 pupils (between the ages 4-18) on a fulltime basis.  A couple of weeks ago, Mirela and I went up to Muswell Hill and checked it out and the school was absolutely impeccable. What impressed me the most though was the passion and enthusiasm portrayed by the teaching staff as they were demonstrating to us how the various facilities were benefiting the children and how parents were seeing this progress reflected at home; it made me realise that there is no greater fulfilment than the one achieved by helping other people.

 

If I haven't lost you by this point I do hope that I’ve been able to reach into your hearts - even better I hope I have reached a little further and into your pockets :) Joking aside, I am asking for as much support as you feel you can offer for this great charity.

 

Thanking you in advance

 

Gregory Kolokouris

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