KinderGarten was founded in 2017 by Eleni Diamantopoulou (former primary teacher at the European School of Brussels, MEd Early Years from UCL Institute of Education) and Claudia Bertolini (Italian early-years specialist, trained at the Loris Malaguzzi International Centre in Reggio Emilia). The two met in Reggio Emilia during a 2014 study visit, kept in touch through a shared frustration that Athens parents had to choose between rigid bilingual academies and warm-but-unstructured neighbourhood preschools, and finally pooled their savings to take over a 1962 family villa on Kassaveti street in Kifisia. They renovated it themselves over six months — keeping the original olive in the garden, knocking through three small rooms into one large atelier, and painting the staircase a colo



