Volunteer readers help elderly combat loneliness

"How beautiful old Athens used to be!" muses Nikos Boukouras, as he discusses the secrets of the Ilissos River with Aris Lintzerakos, 40 years his junior. In Nikos' small apartment in the heart of downtown Petralona, where he now lives alone on a disability pension, the pair's discussions every Thursday range from Athens in the 1980s and 1990s, to model-making, to the Patra Carnival. "This is our time," says the 25-year-old student, a volunteer for the Therapeutic Reading program set up by the Reading for Others nonprofit organization (Diavazo gia tous Allous).

Reading for Others was founded in 2015 with the aim of recording audiobooks to make them fully accessible to people with visual disabilities. This idea has been embraced by a network of more than 4,000 volunteers who have recorded more than 100 audiobooks.

"Because we believe in the value of inclusion, we...