The distinction is awarded annually to two personalities who stood out internationally for their role in defending human rights and democracy and for promoting dialogue, global interdependence and solidarity.
Ms. Lora Pappa was born and grew up in Athens. She studied in Switzerland in the Department of Political Sciences of the University of Geneva and completed a Master’s Degree in International Relations from the Graduate Institute (1988).
Following university studies, she worked for a Greek NGO, Greek Council for Refugees and thereafter for the National Youth Foundation (15 years), a specialized agency of the Greek Ministry of Education. During her term with the latter, she strived for a consortium of NGOs, state agencies and local authorities to better coordinate actions to the benefit of asylum seekers; she also initiated the first specialized shelters for unaccompanied minors in Greece.
She was engaged as a Consultant to the UNHCR for seven years, focusing on actions at the border locations mainly in the field of coordination and collaboration between all actors. In parallel, she acted as Advisor to the Greek Ministry of Interior for the first months of the organization of the Global Forum on Migration and Development (2008). Her main interest and focus of work since the early 1990s relates to the reception and integration of refugees and asylum-seekers, in particular of unaccompanied minors.
Within the framework of the National Youth Foundation, she piloted and established the first Reception Centre for Unaccompanied Minors in Greece, in Anogia of Crete (2000), which is acknowledged as a model facility in Greece until today, due to the services provision and the successful prospect of integration of children in the local society. In 2010, she initiated the opening of a similar Centre for Unaccompanied Girls and Single Mothers in Athens.
In 2010, and following several years of experience in the field, Lora Pappa founded the NGO METAdrasi - Action for Migration and Development. Through the creation of METAdrasi, Ms. Pappa aimed to address long standing gaps in the reception and integration of refugees and immigrants in Greece. METAdrasi’s main focus has been primarily community interpretation and the care of unaccompanied minors. More particularly, METAdrasi provides interpretation in the context of the asylum procedures, and of other State and IGO/NGO services targeting migrants and refugees, filling a major gap which had existed for over twenty years in Greece.
Today METAdrasi is recognized as the primary resource for community interpretation for asylum seekers, refugees and migrants in Greece, as its services are based on standardized codes of conduct and operating rules. METAdrasi currently has more than 280 active, certified interpreters and intercultural mediators and has to date undertaken more than 345.000 individual interpreting sessions.
Through METAdrasi, Ms Pappa is also actively engaged in several actions to address the needs of vulnerable groups, such as unaccompanied children. First, with the aim of addressing the problem of prolonged stay of unaccompanied minors in detention centers or worse, on the streets, at the main entry locations, METAdrasi established and provides a flexible group of escort teams who safely transfer children to designated facilities for minors, thus protecting them from potential exposure to smuggling or exploitation. More than 3,700 children have benefited from this activity. In 2015, METAdrasi again pioneered the creation of a Network for the Guardianship of Unaccompanied Minors in Greece, developed on the basis of similar experiences in the Netherlands, Norway and Belgium. Over 450 children have received specialized support by members of the Guardianship Network.
Similarly, METAdrasi has developed the framework for, and a network of, foster families in Greece, to provide an alternative safe placement for unaccompanied minors. To date, 9 children have been placed in temporary accommodation within a safe family environment.
Most recently, to complete the safety net for unaccompanied minors arriving in Greece, METAdrasi has established transit accommodation facilities for unaccompanied minors in the main entry islands Lesvos, Samos and Chios. In the context of transit accommodation facilities children can be placed safely immediately upon their arrival at the island and their identification, thus avoiding entirely the risk of placement at inappropriate mass detention centers. Over 130 children have been hosted so far. In all these actions, METAdrasi, and Ms Pappa personally, have always based their work on the highest standards of professionalism and ethics, developing specialist training methods, recruiting dedicated and committed staff, bringing pioneering methods and approaches benefitting refugees and vulnerable groups in multiple ways, offering the chance to hundreds of volunteers also to participate in addressing the humanitarian needs of the refugees, particularly during the recent crisis, and always striving to offer the best possible contribution and input to areas not previously covered by others and until these services can best be offered institutionally by the State.