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Our team

Ioanna Babasika is a lawyer with postgraduate studies in European and Comparative Law. She has been a member of the Athens Bar Association since 1975.

She was a member of Amnesty International and president of their European programme, a member of the Secondary Asylum Committee for seven years, a member of the Special Committee on the Rights of People living with Mental Illness for another 7 years, a member of the Special Committee for the Prevention of Torture-CPT. She co-founded and served as legal advisor to the Medical Center for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Torture for 20 years. Since 2011 she has served as the legal expert in METAdrasi’s programme for the certification of victims of torture.

Agis Terzidis is a pediatrician, specializing in public health and holding a doctorate in preventive medicine-epidemiology. He supervises the “International Medicine – Health Crisis Management” postgraduate programme at the Medical School of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens.

Being one of the first active members of the Doctors of the World in Greece, he has participated in the multiple missions across Greece and abroad. He has also joined medical missions of Doctors without Borders, where he has served as member of the board.  Today he is an active member of Doctors without Borders Greece. He has a particular scientific interest in improving access to the health care system for socially excluded groups, as well as for the health of displaced populations. He is a certified expert in the identification of victims of torture and since 2013 he serves as a member of METAdrasi’s scientific team for the certification of victims of torture.

Aspa Tzeletopoulou is a psychologist who specializes in psychodynamic psychotherapy for adults and adolescents. She has extensive experience with people who have suffered mental and physical trauma and has worked extensively with people with a multitude of mental disorders. In her clinical practice she particularly deals with depression, anxiety / anxiety disorders, trauma management, grief and mourning, as well as the support of family of people living with mental illness. She has extensive experience working with survivors of violence (torture, sexual / gender-based violence) and with people of different cultural backgrounds (intercultural / interdisciplinary approach).

Fotini Zachou has a degree in Political Science, History and Law. A lawyer by profession, she has been active in the field of Humanitarian Law for the last three years as a member of METAdrasi’s team for the certification of victims of torture.

Marina Gioka has been a social worker since 2003. She worked at the Center for Recovery and Rehabilitation of Children with Disabilities in Voula and subsequently as a social worker in the “Help at Home” programme at the Employment and Social Welfare Network as well as in other non-governmental organizations supporting refugees since the beginning of 2016. She later joined METAdrasi in her capacity as a social worker in the Supervised Independent Living programme, whilst for the past four years she has been working as a member of the interdisciplinary team in the programme for the certification of victims of torture.

Marianna Kapi is a biologist, with postgraduate studies at the medical school of the University of Athens in the programme “International Medicine and Health Crisis Management”. Since 2018, she has been served as coordinator in the programme for the identification and certification of victims of torture.

Katerina Downward has committed her professional life to defending human rights, with extensive experience in the fields of humanitarian response, a proven track-record as a leader supporting refugee livelihoods and a long-standing commitment to social justice, especially pertaining to detention, state violence, and climate justice. She graduated Magna Cum Laude from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, and obtained a Master’s degree in Human Rights, graduating with distinction, from the London School of Economics. During her formative and academic years she volunteered at human rights and civil society organizations across four continents – Europe, North America, Africa and South America. She also worked at the Washington Peace Centre and Amnesty International in Washington DC and supported a Georgetown University Professor of Government and Law, as a research assistant. Later, she worked at an education nonprofit in New York partnering with under-resourced middle and high schools to implement curricular materials on social-issue documentaries as a way of engendering civic engagement and human rights literacy.  

She joined METAdrasi in November 2017 where in her capacity as the Head of the Education and Integration department she leads a team of 60 overseeing the implementation of the organizations’ education programs for refugees and migrants across the country, reporting to donors including UNHCR, IOM and UNICEF, and serving more than 3000 beneficiaries annually. In January 2021, she was nominated to take on additional responsibilities, helming a programme that certifies survivors of torture and trains frontline workers in identifying possible survivors.