Sophie Magennis is Head of the Policy and Legal Support Unit at UNHCR s Office for Europe in Brussels. Prior to her appointment, she was UNHCR s Head of Office in Ireland. Previously, she was Head of Policy and Legislation at the Irish Ombudsman for Children s Office and administrator of the Irish Human Rights Commission. She co-founded Human Rights Consultants in 2000. Prior to that, she served as a Deputy to the Irish Ambassador to the Council of Europe. She has worked with the Council of Europe as a Legal Consultant for the Monitoring Unit of the Secretary General and as a Legal Expert at the Council of Europe s Section for equality between women and men. She is an Attorney and Counsellor at Law at the New York State Bar and holds a European Master s Degree in Human Rights and Democratisation from the European Inter-University Centre in Venice, Italy. Ludovico Gammarelli is a humanitarian aid worker with field and HQ experience for development and complex emergency contexts in Sub- Saharan Africa. With these experiences he has matured competence in emergency needs assessment, humanitarian project and program design, implementation and monitoring. He is working as humanitarian expert for the European Commission since 2012. In March 2016 he has joined the team in DG ECHO managing the newly established Emergency Support Instrument, which provides humanitarian assistance inside the EU. Alexandra Androussou is an Associate professor, she teaches Methodology Training and works in the Department of Early Childhood Education for the National University of Athens. Since 1997 she is a member of the Scientific Committee and in charge of the program "Education of children of the Muslim minority in Thrace" She has focused her studies and research on minority education, teaching practices and initial and continuing education of teachers. She also produces educational material for children and adults. Since November 2015 she organizes with a group of her students educational activities in the open hospitality structure Eliaona in Athens, targeting children aged
5-15 years. Since March 2016 she is also a member of the Scientific Committee of the Ministry of Education, Research and Religious Affairs, which drew up and submitted the proposal for the education of children of refugees implemented by October 2016. Dr. Dimitrios Goulis has a PhD in Children s Literature. He was born and raised in Thessaloniki and he worked as a teacher from 1995 until today. He has written dictionaries and books on children's literature and for creative writing. He also involved in the writing group of books for teaching Greek language in the Greek minority in Albania. He taught courses on children's literature in the Department of Education and the Department of Early Childhood Education in Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. He has participated in conferences with announcements related issues teaching of language, literature & teaching the Holocaust. Today he is the Principal at the 67th Primary School of Thessaloniki and he is working on his Post-PhD about Teaching local History through School's Archives. Luaay Kommam Albabilli My name is Luaay and I am 24 years old. I come from Syria, Aleppo. By the age of 21 I had already finished my studies at the University of Aleppo, in the archaeological department and after that I continued my studies doing my master on archaeology with topics on ancient writing. One of my biggest experiences was working inside the university of Aleppo as an ancient writing teacher transmitting the knowledge I had gained no much longer ago, as well as I was in charge of the general organization and archiving of the antiquities of the museum. At the same time I was working as tourist guide of the museum introducing to its visitors the glory and the history of Aleppo museum. I had a happy life until the war hit my country. I had to leave my parents my four brothers and my grandparents and go as far as I could because I didn't want to take anyone's life. That happened almost three years ago. From Lebanon to Turkey from Turkey to Greece from Greece to France and today I am here standing in front of you still trying to find my place in this world. I have dreams, I have hope
and I have fears like everyone else. Thank you for letting me be with you today. I believe it's a great day. I believe that this day can change the lives of all of us here. Paloma Favieres is the Coordinator of the juridical Service of the Spanish Committee for Refugee Support (CEAR) since 2012. She has worked as a lawyer since 1990 and is an expert in Human Rights, Migration, and Asylum. Specialized in juridical assistance to people seeking international protection and refugees, both within the state and at borders, she has worked both on a Spanish and on a European level. She has written the annual reports of CEAR on the situation of refugees in Spain, and represents the organization in the Council for the Elimination of Racial or Ethnic Discrimination, a public organism depending on the Ministry of Health, Social Services and Equality. She also represents CEAR at the European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE). Lorena Di Lorenzo Having graduated in Sociology with a specialization in Socioanthropological and development studies, she has always been close to issues related to the promotion of Human Rights. She has an extensive experience in project management concerning youth and social inclusion, having worked since 2008 with various organizations in Dublin, Rome and Sicily, within projects relating to asylum, childhood protection, education, integration of migrants and social emergencies. Since 2010 she has worked in projects dedicated to unaccompanied minors, such as a social help-desk for children on the move from Afghanistan to North Europe, educational activities in a shelter project for unaccompanied minors living in Rome, intercultural mediation projects and Italian language teaching. In the last two years she has been working with Terre des Hommes as Field Officer and Coordinator of the psychosocial activities in the Faro project which aims to give psychosocial support to unaccompanied minors and families with children, arriving in Sicily.
Lina Venturas is a Professor at the Department of Political Science and History of the Panteion University in Athens. She has studied history and sociology in Greece, France and Belgium. Using historical and sociological approaches her research focuses on migrations, diaspora, sending states policies, transnationalism and international organizations. She has published articles and books and has edited special issues and volumes on theoretical and historical issues in the field of migration studies. She was the Scientific Coordinator of a research project on Migration Management and International Organizations: A History of the Establishment of the International Organization for Migration, funded by the European Social Fund and the Greek General Secretariat for Research and Technology. She was the President of the Scientific Committee the Greek Ministry of Education formed in 2015 in order to develop a plan for the integration of refugee children into the educational system. Lorena Martin has an academic background on Semitic and Islamic Studies by the Complutense University of Madrid and a Masters in International Humanitarian Action by University of Groningen with a specialisation in Conflict, Peace-Building and Religion by Uppsala University. She undertook her BA thesis research in the United States on transnational migration networks of Muslim communities in the state of Minnesota and she has been living and working in different MENA countries as Morocco, Tunisia, and lately in Lebanon where she has been undertaking her Master thesis research about the access to quality education and the situation of child labour in Lebanon, at the same time that she is collaborating with an International NGO working for the education sector within the Syrian Humanitarian Response in Lebanon, based at the moment in the Bekaa border region.
Lilian Seenoi is the Founder/Director of programmes at the North-West Migrants Forum, responsible for project development, planning and delivery. A Maasai woman, originally from Kenya, been involved with community work for the last 20 years, migrated to Northern Ireland as a refugee in 2010.Inspired by personal experiences trying to settle in Derry-Londonderry, I established the North West Migrants Forum to provide practical support, such as immigration advice and integration support to migrants, refugees and asylum seekers. I am a holder of a BSC in community development and currently undertaking a second BSC in Community Youth Studies and social policy. I am also a member of the newly established racial equality subgroup appointed by the first minister and deputy first minister and a member of the Northern Ireland Consortium resettling Syrian Refugees under the vulnerable person s relocation scheme North West Migrants Forum (NWMF) is a registered charity (Charity no NIC103178) which was established in February 2012 to promote the benefit of migrants, refugees, asylum seekers living in Derry City and its environs of County Derry. NWMF main objective is to promote equality, diversity and interdependence for people of minority ethnic backgrounds (BME) and refugees. We focus on bringing BME, refugees and asylum seekers together with the wider community to make contact, promote community good relations and cohesion. North west Migrants Forum is supported by the office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister, Derry City and Strabane District Council and several other private funders
Salamaah Mahmood Abdul-Karim is a licensed secondary school teacher in Swedish, English and Social studies. She holds a B.A. in Education and Behavioural Science. She is a former committee member / board member and passenger of Ship to Gaza Sweden 2010-2014.Since 2014 she is also a supervisor in a camp for unaccompanied refugee children. Ángela María Arbeláez Arbeláez is a humanitarian activist and journalist. She studied at the University of Crete in Greece and at the Lomonosov Moscow State University, where she earned her Ph.D. in History of Art. In 2012, the president of Colombia awarded her the Marca Pais- Marca Colombia prize as one of the prominent Colombian citizens working abroad, together with Fernando Botero, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez and in 2015 she received the Premio de las Americas in Israel. In both awards she was particularly commended for her contribution to the Interfaith Intercultural Dialogue. She is fluent in four languages: Spanish, English, Greek and Russian. She was born in Colombia and lives in Greece since 1998. She and her daughter founded the nonprofit volunteer group ART Angels Relief Team a creative platform and music education program for children and young refugees, living in refugee camps in Greece. Nicholas Millet is a coordinator of the Refugee Education project Be aware and share based in the Chios Island. His journey started last year when he quit his job as a Management Consultant after visiting the Calais Jungle one weekend to deliver aid. He spent one month and half volunteering in the Calais Jungle before moving to Chios Island. In Chios he became a coordinator of the largest volunteer rescue and response group, responding to refugees making the treacherous journey over the Aegean Sea from Turkey. Following the EU-Turkey deal, Nicholas alongside other long term volunteers set up Refugee Education Chios.
Refugee Education Chios started as an emergency education response programme consisting of a school and youth centre but has now developed into the only education system for children aged between 6-20 years old on the Island. Denied their rights to formal education and stuck living in the horrendous conditions that lack protection and resources, Refugee Education Chios provides an escape for the children. The project is now in its six month of operations, and has currently around 250 students accessing their services on a weekly basis. Anna Michalakeli is a social anthropologist with an MA in Education and Human Rights. Her professional experience is focused on two main fields: extensive qualitative research, as well as implementing and coordinating EU-funded and National projects related to integration of migrants and asylum seekers in the labour market, discrimination against migrants in relation to their religious identity, integration of the Muslim minority children of Thrace in the educational system and the wider society, gender inequalities and stereotypes. Moreover, she served for two years in the Appeals Authority of the Greek Asylum Service as a member of the committees, where she acquired an extensive experience in relation to refugee status determination, as well as thorough knowledge for the countries of origin of refugees. Currently, she is working at Medecins du monde - Grece (MdMs) in the Domestic Missions Department and more specifically as a project coordinator of MdMs Interventions regarding refugees in the island of Lesvos. Theofanis Boumpouloudis was born in Athens, Greece, in 1981. He graduated from the Single Multi-sectoral Lyceum of Alexandroupolis, where he participated in a multinational school environmental protection project (Greece, Italy, and Finland). Additionally, he holds a BSc degree in Physics and an MSc degree on Environmental Physics and Meteorology. During his studies and military service, he worked as a researcher on atmospheric physics and as a meteorologist. He has also worked with high school students on creative teaching of Physics and Mathematics (creative drama, experiment), and collaborated with the A Teaching and
Learning Approach for Science team at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. Since March 2016, he is working at the Greek NGO PRAKSIS, providing protection services and carrying out recreational and educational activities for unaccompanied refugees at the island of Lesvos. In his current capacity as an Education Officer at PRAKSIS Accommodation Centre for Unaccompanied Children in Lesvos, he oversees all aspects related to the education of the children, both via the national education system of Greece as well as through a series of initiatives organized by the shelter. Finally, he studies the traditional oud instrument and classical ottoman music, participates in theatrical plays as an actor and is a founding member of the Nationwide Festival of Amateur Theatre at the village of Astritsi in Crete.