Across different decades, three ACS Athens alumni have dedicated their lives to championing human rights and relieving human suffering, each working to leave the world better than they found it. Despite living through experiences unique to their generation, the world in which they came of age while walking the halls of ACS Athens would come to deeply impact how they saw the world and their role in it.

Let's journey with them, beginning with Susannah Sirkin (Class of 1972), whose career in human rights has elevated awareness and solutions surrounding some of the most horrific causes for human suffering, including the targeted annihilation of doctors and the medical community in Syria, sexual violence in armed conflicts in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, and Iraq, and most notably the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, for which her organization was a co-recipient of the 1997 Nobel Prize for Peace.

Susannah arrived at ACS Athens after the 1967 coup by the colonels that plunged Greece into a seven-year dictatorship. As a teenager, Susannah was disturbed by the stifling measures put in place, including the arresting and torture of dissenters, exiling poets and musicians, prohibiting people with long hair and jeans from going to Syntagma, and media censorship, which spoke to her personally seeing as she was the co-editor of The Sophist, the school newspaper at the time. Given her dad’s role as Counselor for Public Affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Athens, her family came to know dissenting artists, writers and academics who opposed the military regime.

“I remember taking trips to the islands and singing banned Theodorakis songs loudly,” she shared, remembering how being an American afforded her small luxuries that Greeks could be jailed for. “I realized that we were privileged to be at an American school where we were being taught to think deeply when most Greeks were constrained in what they could learn and express.”

Following her university studies, Susannah’s experience of living abroad drew her to her first career in teaching English as a second language (ESL). She studied in Spain right after the fall of the Franco regime and lived and taught in  France when refugees were fleeing the devastating Khmer Rouge massacres in Cambodia. Her travels to the Soviet Union to support those prevented from practicing their religion, including Jewish and Orthodox Christian families, got her followed by the KGB. Later, she connected with groups treating survivors of torture, including Greek prisoners who had suffered at the hands of the dictatorship she remembered disdaining in her youth.

Ms. Sirkin joined Amnesty International, first as a volunteer, and then as a staff, where she campaigned with human rights advocates to oppose political imprisonment, torture, extra-judicial killings, and the death penalty. In the mid-1980s,  she met Bono, Sting, Joan Baez, and Richie Havens among other musicians who performed for the cause. Despite those highlights, Susannah’s next chapter would prove to be even more impactful and enduring as she joined Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), an organization launched to bring the expertise and influence of the medical profession to the human rights movement. Over the decades, she traveled to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Haiti, India, Iraq, Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Kenya, Sudan, Turkey and Uganda, where she worked with (and learned from) dedicated members of the medical community and with lawyers to support human rights. In the U.S. she organized PHR to make the case for the right to asylum, and trained more doctors to do the work needed to meet the demand worldwide.

Working with Physicians for Human Rights for 35+ years, Susannah’s efforts focused on advocating to hold perpetrators of human rights violations, war crimes and mass atrocities accountable, including the Assad regime in Syria, whose deliberate strategy of bombing hospitals forced vast numbers of doctors and medical professionals to flee their country and become refugees. Ms. Sirkin traveled to Germany to meet with members of the large Syrian refugee community there, collaborating with them to document the atrocities they suffered as a core step toward accountability - a process still in action nearly a decade after the world awoke to the reality of the war imposed by the Syrian government on many of its own people.

With the United Nations expecting the number of refugees to increase by 20% in 2024, the work that Ms. Sirkin did with PHR in securing the right to live safely is more urgent than ever. 

When alumni George Petropoulos (Class of 1997) was growing up, the world shifted from post-Berlin Wall optimism to a series of international conflicts, including the first Gulf War in Iraq and the war that embroiled Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, and what is now Kosovo. As a young man attending ACS Athens, learning what it means to be service-oriented, he remembers being inspired by a group of people in blue helmets he would see on the news who always seemed to be in the midst of conflicts trying to protect people at times of war.

Upon graduation from ACS Athens, his studies took George to the United States and later to England, where he received his Master's in Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution. After completing his required military service in Greece, George looked for professional opportunities that would allow him to serve in peacekeeping endeavors. He spent about five years with the Greek organization of Doctors of the World, working both in Greece and in Sudan, as well as with Action Against Hunger in Uganda and Pakistan. In 2011, his work brought him to Afghanistan, first with the Norwegian Refugee Council and then with the United Nations Office of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the part of the organization that mobilizes emergency responses to save lives and protect people in times of humanitarian crisis.

“Working within the United Nations Office of Humanitarian Affairs, our role is to remind the world to be better, to help save lives and restore dignity,” George explains.

Through his work with the United Nations, George has driven humanitarian efforts in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Libya and is currently leading efforts in Gaza in occupied Palestine.

When we spoke to him earlier this month, he shared the devastating and helpless reality in Gaza, where Israeli tanks were less than a kilometer away from his makeshift office.

“When doing humanitarian work, the idea is to go to where the war is to help,” he explained. “Usually, you find yourself next to the war positioned on the sidelines, but in Gaza, we are right in the middle of the fighting.”

For Mr. Petropoulos, experiences at ACS Athens unwittingly prepared him for his chosen path, not because of his studies or the friendships (although he is still close with two friends made in Mr. English’s science class). Growing up in the multicultural environment of ACS Athens, he grew up with friends from Arab and Palestinian families, which gave him a foundation to understand people at a more personal level - a vital necessity in times of crisis.

He also shared that he finds being Greek an asset in his current environment because there is an inherent flexibility in the Greek mindset that allows one to navigate uncertainty.

The constant uncertainty and devastation is a grueling reality that is mentally taxing, even for the most experienced professional, especially given that the dire reality often means that the only aid that one can provide is to hold a dying person’s hand in a futile effort to extend an ounce of humanity amid devastating loss.

When asked what advice he’d give to somebody interested in humanitarian work, George asked,

“Would you be happy to help people on a sinking ship - to put a bandage on a child on the Titanic with no lifeboat in sight? The point of humanitarian work is to stay when things are bad. You can’t do this job if you are looking for instant gratification. You must be in it for something bigger.”

For most of us, the idea of willfully marching into a war zone seems like a heroic act far beyond our capacity, so we asked George, how could the rest of us help from our respective corners of the world.

“Start by supporting an NGO that is doing the important work needed on the ground, whether that is offering mental health support, protecting women or securing water supplies,” he offered, reminding us that there is an everyday reality that needs attention, even during times of war. “Importantly, half of wars are due to climate change with people fighting over things needed to live - like water. Working on climate change today will help address the conflicts of the future.”

As Mr. Petropoulos notes, charities and NGOs are one of the most important sources of support for people navigating and fleeing wartime. When government and industry-driven mechanisms delay or falter during times of conflict, these groups of varying sizes and focus areas are often seen stepping in to solve both immediate and enduring needs.

For alumna Marina Kokkinou (Class of 2015), seeing the refugee crisis unfold in Greece while at university in Scotland left her feeling powerless. While her family in Greece was hosting a family from Iraq and later unaccompanied children in need of support, Marina felt stuck and desperate to help while she was in Glasgow. This need to help others became a guiding light.

Although naturally civic-minded since her school days at ACS Athens, it wasn’t until she volunteered with an organization helping refugee youth during a summer break in Greece that she realized her calling. Volunteering turned into an internship, which then transformed into a professional path forward helping small nonprofits mobilize programming and efforts to help refugees.

During the Pandemic, many of the small nonprofit organizations that refugees relied on in Greece and other parts of Europe shuttered and were not able to keep their efforts going due largely to the inability to source support from volunteers. As travel restrictions eased, Marina joined Indigo Volunteers in August 2021 as the Head of Programming and Partnerships to reconnect and rebuild the relationships that had lapsed during the Pandemic and to help reconnect partner charities with vital volunteers needed to reignite efforts to help refugees. 

Importantly, Indigo Volunteers actively challenged the practices of for-profit volunteering agencies, which are harmful for both volunteers and those they intend to help. 

"Unlike 'voluntourism' agencies that prioritize profit and the volunteer experience over getting real help to the communities in need, Indigo Volunteers put the needs of refugees at the center and creates specialized matches between trained volunteers and grassroots organizations, all at no cost to either party,” Marina explained. “In this way, we are focused on matching volunteers so they can provide meaningful, impactful aid.”

A decade after its inception to respond to the needs of refugees fleeing the war in Syria, Indigo Volunteers continues to serve as a crucial partner to the 50+ humanitarian organizations it helps throughout Europe, including those in Greece, France, Cyprus, Moldova and the United Kingdom. 

What sets Indigo Volunteers apart is the special care the team places on understanding and constantly assessing the needs of its charity partners’ needs to offer the best support possible. 

• When Marina joined the organization, Indigo Volunteers expanded its support by establishing its volunteer hub, a destination through which it offers free wellbeing support and training to humanitarians through its partnership with The Pandora Project. 
• Indigo also works closely with its charity partners to help them develop policies to keep their teams and aid recipients safe, while also making the organizations themselves more sustainable. 

Although the refugee crisis is no longer in the headlines, the need to support the thousands of refugees in the countries served by Indigo Volunteers is even more striking today. Since the Pandemic, grants and funding have shrunk by 40% for the charities that are doing the work that governments are not capable of prioritizing given the current environment.

At a time when funding to aid the refugee crisis is shrinking massively, Indigo Volunteers saved charities about £800,000 in 2023 alone. Yet, as vital as Indigo is for the sector, it is just as dependent on funding to continue its work.

To uphold its fee-free approach, the organization recently launched Indigo Mentors. This new initiative helps companies make a positive social impact while boosting employee engagement by utilizing its volunteer matching expertise to identify remote corporate volunteering opportunities suited to employees’ skills and interests. Not only do employees benefit from growing their confidence and leadership skills, but in sharing their expertise with Indigo’s charity partners, they are helping these humanitarian organizations become stronger, more sustainable organizations so they can help refugees now and into the future.

Whether through in-person volunteering with one of its partner charities in Europe, remote corporate volunteering or even through unique events to increase awareness about the need to support refugees, such as the upcoming ‘Cup of Compassion” benefit in Arnhem in the Netherlands on July 20th, Indigo Volunteers is a humanitarian organization focused on helping people so that their small actions can make a big impact.

In this way, Susannah’s, George’s and Marina’s professional experiences mirror a core philosophy of ACS Athens - teaching students to cultivate themselves as global citizens of the world. The drive to give back and create positive change can begin in the classroom, theater or sports fields of ACS Athens, but it has no boundaries when carried into the world as these alumni have shown through their work in addressing some of the most pressing human rights issues of our time.

Whether we want to leave the world a better place through volunteerism, championing the rights of those oppressed, or helping people in war-torn areas of the world in their greatest time of need, the stories of these alumni highlight a truth we can all remember: Our world is interconnected, and we all have a part to play.