Kleonike Yannakopoulou

Social Entrepreneur & Psychologist, ANIMA

Kleonike is from Greece.

Kleonike is a mother of 4 boys, a Social Entrepreneur, a Psychologist, an Adult Trainer and interested in social issues. During her studies in Psychology she had the opportunity to visit Leros, a Greek island known for its Psychiatric Hospital as a trainee and that experience changed her in a determinant way. Coming from an entrepreneurial family, after her Postgraduate studies in HRM, she decided to found ANIMA (2005), an NGO whose aim is to create mental health services for everyone. She actually wants to achieve therapeutic results, to provide support and to empower anyone experiencing a mental health challenge. She believes no one should face life challenges alone and oppose to therapeutic procedures that turn people-in-need into people-of-need.

Since 2006 she managed a Psychosocial Rehabilitation Unit in Korydallos, Greece and in 2011 she was awarded by the National Network for Workplace Health Promotion (NNWHP) for ANIMA’s
commitment in Mental Health Management in the Workplace (European campaign "Work in Harmony with Life” - the only NGO awarded). As informing people on mental health is a key issue, she created the web platform AnimaCare and – in order to finance her dream for serving people in need, especially those in crisis – in 2015 she founded AnimaCare Store, an atelier and store with handmade creations, mainly from natural and/or reused material.

Kleonike believes there is no truth except the one that makes sense to you and that you should be loyal to it. She is aware of the fact that whatever choices she makes sets the example for her sons to follow and she totally takes full responsibility over that, as she does not wish to raise them for the world as it is today, but for the world she would like them to live in.