Vaggelis Avgoulas CV

Evangelos (Vaggelis) Avgoulas was born in 1988 and raised in Ilion, where he currently lives and works. He is originally from Chania, Crete, while he also has Canadian citizenship.

Education

He spent his early school life at the Center for Education and Rehabilitation for the Blind (CERB) in Kallithea. He then finished Primary School at the 35th School of Piraeus, participating in the “Helios” Pilot Education Program for integrating blind students into a regular classroom. He was the flag carrier in national student parades twice during the school year of 2005-2006 as a student of the 6th Unified Lyceum of Ilion, from where he graduated with an “Excellent” overall grade. He was one of the first grade-wise entering the Athens School of Law, earning a performance award from the State Scholarships Foundation (2007), and graduating with a GPA of 8.4/10. Today he is a postgraduate student at the University of West Attica in the Master’s Program “Educational Sciences through Innovative Technologies and Biomedical Approaches” majoring in “Inclusive Education”.

Professional Experience

Evangelos is a lawyer with postgraduate courses in Civil Law who maintains his private office and works as a trial advocate. In November 2021, he became the first disabled lawyer in history to be elected to the new Board of Directors of the Athens Bar Association.

He is currently a scientific associate of the Metropolitan Bishop of Ilion, Acharnes, and Petroupoli, Athenagoras, for social policy issues.

Since July 2019, he has been the Accessibility Consultant in ReGeneration, the most significant training and employment program in Greece, which allows ever since new graduates with a disability to make their first steps with equality in the labor market.

From March 2017 to September 2020, he served as a Chairman of the Bo+D of the “Seaman’s Home” (Oikos Naftou) Public Law Entity, a body responsible for the insurance and social benefits of active and retired seafarers and their families.

From February 2015 to November 2016, he was a Scientific Associate of Mr. Panagiotis Kouroumplis during his term as a Minister at the Ministries of Health and of Interior and Administrative Reform.

Social Activism

In June 2018, he founded Me Alla Matia NPO, the aftermath of the only fully accessible news portal in Greece, meallamatia.gr. The vision of this company is to eliminate the underrepresentation of PwDs in the public sphere. Among other things, Me Alla Matia NPO implements awareness and inclusion training programs at schools, companies, organizations, and local authorities. It also realizes inclusive cultural events, the most notable being the well-known “Dinner in the Dark”, and awareness campaigns such as #SpeakUp.

During the last 13 years, he has been giving hundreds of lectures, authorized by the Ministry of Education, to students of every level nationwide. He is also included in the Register of Trainers of the Foundation for Pastoral Training of the Holy Archdiocese of Athens from 2021, implementing training for clerics through the training program “Church and vulnerable social groups”.

From September 2014 until June 2015, he served as the Chairman of the “Phaethon” Intermunicipal Center for the Prevention of Addictions and the Promotion of Psychosocial Health.

He has received many awards for his extensive social contribution by various Greek and international institutions, associations, and organizations.

Activism in the Disabled Community

Evangelos served as a Member of the Accessibility Committee for Students with Disabilities at the University of Athens for ten years, since the founding of the committee.

He has also served for a decade in various elected positions at the Panhellenic Association of the Blind. He was elected as a member of the General Council of the National Federation of the Blind from 2012 to 2019, while he was the Deputy Organizational Secretary of the Federation between 2013 and 2014.

Between 2016 and 2019, he was a BoD Member of the “Tyrtaeus” Athletic Prefectural Union for People with Disabilities, serving from the position of President too.

He was the Vice President of “Career Sign”, from 2017-2023, a civil non-profit company specializing in career consulting and professional guidance for PwDs.

From 2021, he is an assistant member of the Hellenic Scientific Society for Assistive Technology (EEEYT).

Local Authorities

In 2010, he was elected as a Councilman for the Municipality of Ilion alongside Mayor Nikos Zenetos, and from 2011 until 2014, he served as Deputy Mayor for Social Policy, Life Learning, Transparency, and E-Government. This made him the youngest Deputy Mayor and the only disabled person in such a position nationwide.

From September 2014 to September 2019, he was an appointed representative of the Municipality of Ilion in the school councils of the Special Primary School and the Special High School & Lyceum, under a unanimous decision of the City Council. He is Vice President of the Association of People with Disability of Ilion, and from January 2015 to December 2023 he was a member of the Health and Social Welfare Committee of the Central Union of Municipalities of Greece (KEDE) by a decision taken by its BoD.

He served as a member of the Board of Directors of the Hellenic Agency for Local Development and Local Government (EETAA) from 2016 until 2019.

In the local elections in 2019, he was re-elected as local Councilman for the third term in a row. He resigned in June 2021, choosing to give a cross-party character to his new position next to the Metropolitan Bishop of Ilion, Acharnes, and Petroupoli.

In the local elections in October 2023, he was a candidate for Regional Councilor in the Western Sector of Athens, with the independent group “Attika Circle of Cooperation and Trust” lead by Giorgos Ioakeimidis, occupying the 4th place of the ballot with 2,091 votes.

Conferences

He has been invited as a speaker at many conferences, the most important of which are the following:

1. Delphi Economic Forum VIII on the panel “Delivering Through Diversity, Equity and Inclusion”
2. TEDxAthens with the talk “Blind Love with a Head Start.”
3. TEDxIonianUniversity with the talk “Through change, I see with different eyes”
4. TEDxAgrinio with the talk “Rethinking the Limits”
5. LIFO’s 2nd Upfront Initiative on the panel “Employment opportunities and disability: Accessibility, improvements, equal opportunities.”
6. 1st Interactive Conference of S.K.E.P. under the auspices of the President of the Republic on the topic “Promoting the Acceptance of Diversity in Schools – Educational Approaches for the social inclusion of young people with Disabilities”
7. International Theological Conference on: “Accessibility-Disability-Church”.

International Activity

He is a founding member of the Hellenic U.S. Alumni Association, an association for past and current participants of U.S. government-sponsored exchange programs. He is also serving as a Regular Representative in Greece of VIEWS, an International Organization for the visually impaired youth.

Other Interests

He speaks English and French. He has published over 4,000 articles in hard-copy and online media in Greece and abroad, while regularly writing on various issues regarding education, politics, society, and more. He is one of the co-authors of “Dodeka” (Twelve), the first crowdsourced novel in Greece.