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This page is part of the 2009 FESTIVAL ARCHIVE.
Visit the current Melbourne Writers Festival website for details of the next festival.

Kon Karapanagiotidis

Kon Karapanagiotidis
Kon Karapanagiotidis is the CEO of the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre; he grew up proudly working class and Greek in a small country town in Victoria. Kon’s personal experience of racism and witnessing the exploitation his parents in factories planted the seeds for his passion for human rights. Kon went on to become a lawyer, social worker and teacher.

Kon says ‘It’s only through my parents' extraordinary sacrifices that I have had the honor and joy of spending the last eighteen years doing what I love. Fighting for the oppressed and invisible people of our country, my people, my community, my inspiration: refugees, the homeless, women and the poor'.

The Asylum Seeker Resource Centre (ASRC) established by Kon in 2001, is Australia’s largest asylum seeker organization. The ASRC is a one stop shop with over 20 services and 700 plus volunteers who have cared for more than 7000 people seeking asylum. In 8 years the ASRC has provided over one million hours of free help worth over 100 million dollars. It has never turned away anyone in need and made all this possible without Federal Government funding.
Kon Karapanagiotidis will be appearing:

This panel will ‘explore issues of identity and belonging’ from a range of perspectives, so to better prepare students studying this particular context as part of their VCE year.
This panel will ‘explore issues of identity and belonging’ from a range of perspectives, so to better prepare students studying this particular context as part of their VCE year.