Slowly, almost imperceptibly at first, a smile spreads across the little girl’s face. Blinking behind her glasses, she inches her wheelchair forward and gently reaches out to stroke the tiny grey horse.
“I really want them to come again,” Josifina said of Ivi and a second miniature horse, Calypso, after a November morning visit to her Athens primary school for children with special needs. “They made me feel really happy.”
Ivi and Calypso are two of nine tiny equines from Gentle Carousel Greece, a Greek offshoot of US-based charity Gentle Carousel Miniature Therapy Horses offering visits to hospitals, rehabilitation centres and care homes.
But the charity they are part of is struggling to make ends meet – run by one woman who funds the entire operation herself, with one assistant and no support team.
