Transcriber: MARIANGELA LESTOU Reviewer: Chryssa R. Takahashi
Few of us are born with a humanitarian soul.
I know, I wasn't.
Human nature is an awkward mystery. You know how it works.
We get upset by everything that is happening around us,
the human distraction, the pain, the injustice,
but then, you know, we go back to our little routines
and we seem to forget.
The journey is roughly the following:
we receive the external stimuli,
we start processing,
we reject some of it and we put some on the back burner.
But then, there is this incredible defining moment of epiphany.
Now, I am sure you all expect
that I am going to tell you the story of my epiphany
and I'm probably going to be telling you things you don't expect to hear
but, my moment was a little bit unusual.
When we get the epiphany and we know we have to go on the other side,
we have to cross over,
and when we don't see the world with the same eyes,
and we go on the doer side,
we start realizing that we need to be active.
In my case, it was more of an invasion of my comfortable life, until then.
So, I left Greece in about 1992,
I told my mother I was going away for a few months just to test the waters,
-- they're still waiting for me --
and I wanted to see how life was away from the comfort zone.
So, I went, aspiring to have a career with an international hotel company
and I traveled around the world
and then in 2000, I found myself in Dubai.
Now, Dubai, you would agree with me, is not exactly the traditional place
where you expect the seed of giving to be planted in you.
So, I arrived, it was full of wealth and flashy cars
and soon after, I was dragged into one of those social tea parties,
which was led by a fiercely powerful women called Laila.
She was from Egypt, and I wasn't exactly sure what I was doing there,
but before a few minutes had already gone by,
I discovered this was an undercover recruitment drive.
Laila was asking for full commitment
for a new initiative called "Love for All".
Laila didn't care about geography. Laila didn't care about language.
She didn't care how many charities, initiatives...
She didn't really care about anything.
All she wanted, was to look after children.
So, she asked for everybody that night to unite,
to steer away from competing with each other,
and unite for the children.
Now, I went to a tea party and I was being recruited.
So, I had just arrived,
I had two children - a new born and a two year old -
I had already said yes to a full time job
and I was very hesitant.
But you have to know something else about Laila.
No one says "no" to Laila.
So my inspiration for starting to do fundraising and charity
was actually out of fear.
But, in all honesty,
the first time I saw Laila
being embraced by all these children
and they had so little less than adoration in their eyes,
I realized why she was doing it.
Then I got my first hug.
Now that was a defining moment, that was my epiphany.
I took this newly found passion in South East Asia.
I went to Cambodia, Thailand, Singapore.
Biggest love affair was a very low key special needs initiative
in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Now, talking about a humbling experience,
you know we all have - or most of us in this room - have Greek DNA,
so, when we joined this cause,
the first stages, we work for something abstract
and we don't really know.
We know we're doing something good,
but we don't know exactly what's happening.
Now, when I joined the special children society,
I was expecting those fiery debates
and the arguments and the endless meetings
because this was a group of parents,
who was being ignored by the system
and all they needed was a loving caring environment
for these hundreds of special needs children
ignored by the system.
I was humbled everyday.
I learnt quiet power, determination,
accepting, rather than defying,
is actually working better.
You don't need to go out there,
you don't need to make noise,
you just need to stay focused.
I was being humbled and humbled
and I was in awe of all those hard working parents,
I discovered the true sense of volunteer work
and I moved on to becoming a better person, I think.
Now, Arabian Gulf, South East Asia, so where is Greece?
What happened with Greece?
I went back to Dubai in 2009
and the bad omens were everywhere.
Desperate calls, things were starting to change,
family being very upset, in trouble,
friends calling me, asking me for any type of help.
Now, was it again the Greek drama magnet?
No.
This time, it was different.
This time I knew that my country was going into a lot of trouble.
Again, I'm going to disappoint you.
My second epiphany was not what you expect.
I was actually, at this age, you know,
we all get flooded by these Facebook school reunions invites,
and being far away I couldn't really join,
but this time, I thought, well I need to reconnect with my friends.
So, there I was
and I reconnected with a very good dear friend of mine,
who I hadn't seen for 30 years. Tasos.
Tasos was working as a volunteer at a Greek NGO at the mobile unit section
and we spent the whole evening
talking about everything that he was facing and confronting
and I was listening to him and I was thinking
"What is he talking about?", you know,
"I have been in the region with tsunamis,
I have gone to Third World countries,
I have seen disasters and social injustice.
Is he talking about Greece?
Is he talking about my own country?"
Well then he said: "You know what?
If you don't believe me,
come and walk with me in the streets of Athens."
And I did.
And this is what I saw.
These are photographs that [have been] taken
by our own volunteer photographer, Solonas Martas,
and he is taking photographs every day when we go out.
So, the next step was, ok start talking to these people
and I did.
I started talking to these people
and what came back was my second epiphany because
they said, "You label us because it is convenient,
but this is not an accurate assessment of who we are
and why we are here.
This is not a master plan,
we didn't decide that we were going to live on the streets
or be in what we call these days the street situation.
We are here because of a moment, because of a need
and we need more humility,
we need less lecturing,
we need you to hear
and we need to understand that you don't believe you know everything.
We need to sit down
and when our imperfect paths, yours and ours meet,
be humble,
listen.
What you think is my need
is not what I need from you."
Now, the answer to that obviously was this feedback,
this overwhelming feedback,
and the answer was for us to invest on the streets.
That's how Emfasis foundation was born.
Very simple, very humble.
It is called Social Street Work.
So, we go to them,
we go to them,
we don't expect them to come to us.
We are there everyday on the streets.
We ask them what do they need.
Sometimes they just need to talk,
they don't need fixing necessarily,
they need somebody to care,
they need somebody to inspire the hope,
that there is a way out.
Now, we support,
but ultimately the choice is theirs.
We support by empowering them.
We love what we are doing.
The people that are involved - I am just a voice.
There is more than twenty street workers, as we call them.
They are psychologists, sociologists, social workers.
But you know what?
They are also simple people who heard about it
and they just wanted to come and join us.
So, everyone is invited to join us,
everyone is invited to come to the streets
and give what they can.
So, I just want to make sure that you understand.
You don't need to quit all your worldly possessions,
or, you know, go to some remote place.
You don't need to have superpowers,
I mean look at me,
you don't need to have incredible amounts of money,
you don't need to be part of a big set up.
I think if you don't take the step,
if I hadn't taken the step,
I would have deprived myself from the biggest gift of all.
The gift of giving.
I would have deprived myself
from getting involved with people,
real people, who had a call,
that I was learning from, every day.
The people with a quiet acceptance.
My Greek DNA was being changed.
I didn't have to fight back.
Just stay focused.
Now, we talked a lot about uncharted waters.
In my case, I want to tell you,
the uncharted waters are outside this building.
When we leave this majestic event,
when we go back to our routines and our everyday lives,
can you do me a favor?
Can you observe the face of the elderly man,
who is clearly out of place?
Can you observe the face of the working child,
who should actually be in school?
Can you observe the face of this stranded migrant,
who's full of insecurity?
Now, can you visualize
that they were all born to a mother,
with the same new born innocence
like everybody in this room?
And I have a question for you today.
Imagine that this person was one of your loved ones,
one of your family, friends.
How grateful would you be if someone would have just stopped by,
simply stopped by, and offered help?
And I am asking you again.
Can you be that person?
Thank you very much.
(Applause)