Kon is a qualified Lawyer, Social Worker and Teacher and has been recognised for his community service with an Order of Australia Medal, and dozens of other awards including an Honorary Doctor of Laws and a Churchill Fellowship.
Kon is also a twice published author, his memoir ‘The Power of Hope’ by Harper Collins and his Greek cookbook ‘Philoxenia - A Seat At My Table’ co-authored with his mother, Sia Karapanagiotidis, by Hardie Grant Books. He is a keen gardener and cook, well known public speaker and advocate for a range of social causes.
Kon was the first in his family to go to high school. He is the son of Greek migrants and the grandson of Pontian refugees. Inspired by his own family's experiences of displacement, migration, racism and discrimination, Kon became passionate about human rights and social justice. Kon has spent his life in service to the community since the age of 18, having volunteered in more than two dozen charities from Indigenous, youth, homeless, mental health, community legal centres to people living with HIV/AIDS and children’s charities.
At the age of 28 Kon founded his own charity, the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre in the space of 8 weeks as a class project with the TAFE students he was teaching at the time. It has since gone on to save and enhance the lives of thousands of refugees, change national laws, narratives and policies, engage with thousands of volunteers together with refugees to do this work.
Kon has also raised, with his incredible fundraising team at the ASRC, more than a quarter of a billion dollars through the support of hundreds of thousands of Australians to power the work of the ASRC. Since it began, the ASRC has helped more than 30,000 people seeking asylum and refugees, as a charity that takes no funding from the Australian Government on principle.
My name Kon Karapanagiotidis. I'm a son, brother, partner and a friend. I'm the founder and CEO of the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre and a proud Melbournian and Greek Australian. I grew up in a Country Town Called Mount Beauty, tobacco country. I have this photo that I look at often it's of my mom and dad in the prime of their youth. My dad looking beautiful like a Greek James Dean and my mom in most beautiful summer dress and I feel both a joy and a sadness when I look at that photo because I think about the next 15 years they spent on Tobacco Farms. I think about what a harsh life they had and how much they sacrifice for myself and my sister. Growing up in Mount Beauty was tough. While my parents were welcomed as a kid with a name like Karapanagiotidis and one of our only two Greek families there was a lot of racism there was a lot of bullying. There was a lot of kids telling you to go back to where you came from. So at an early age I learned the importance of standing up for what was right and I learned the importance of what it felt like to be othered, to not be wanted and to not be welcomed and I took that with me for the rest of my life.
We moved from Mount Beauty when I was 12 years of age in 1985 you know my mom had been yearning to come to Melbourne and to be closer to their extended family so we ended up at what was of the 10 worst public schools at the time according to the Herald Sun, and I was seen as a real outlier by other kids and I got bullied through most of high school too.
When I was really struggling as a teenager I discovered the teachings of Martin Luther King and it talked about the importance of not following the drum beat of conformity, about being on the right side of history of standing up for what was right. I remember reading about freedom rights and about the civil rights movement and then my own experiences of racism and bullying got me to identify with sort of racial social justice causes and so those things combine. I'm like I want to fight for human rights, I want to fight for justice, I want to fight for the underdog and that's what I've spent my life doing.
Hi welcome to the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre my name is Kon Karapanagiotidis. I'm the CEO and founder of the Centre. I founded the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre when I was 28 and I was in a particularly dark and terrible space in my life at that time because my dad had died the year before, suddenly, and the thing that it reminded me most of is the preciousness and fragility of family, about defending that.
I remember spending my weekends going around to Not Quite Right stores. I remember grabbing furniture out of hard rubbish days to furnish the building. I remember having almost no one come and volunteer until a couple of months later when Tampa happened (voice of John Howard "We will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come") and everything changed.
(footage of speakers) "What is going on on Manos Island at the moment is in humanitarian crisis"
"In search of peace instead they've ended up in prison camps" "Detention centres that look more like prison camps; prisons Guantanamo Bay down"
"Under a dysfunctional and cruel system"
"How long are we going to spend our life in the prison?" (chanting) what do you want, freedom, what do you want freedom" [Applause]
(footage of Kon) We have to stop this now until they are free we need you to be their lifeline to freedom.
So we start with this little food bank Tampa happens and people are outraged you got moms and dads going here's $50 I can't keep screaming at the TV I'm ashamed to be an Australian. Suddenly instead of three people turning up to volunteer at its peak we had 1,400 at the Melbourne Town Hall in 2014 with a great late Malcolm Fraser hosting the night.
We just kept growing and growing and growing to the point where we run now dozens of different programs in any given year the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre helps 7,000 people. We run our own little Community Health Centre, Human Rights Law Program, Food Bank, meals programs, housing programs, women's empowerment programs, two social enterprises, two cafes in in a partnership with Melbourne University, run employment empowerment education, VET programs financial aid programs, we train the next generation of young refugees, we also have a centre not just in Footscray but one in Dandenong, a refugee resource Hub and we advocate and campaign at a national level all across Australia.
We've built a movement of millions now with of course the kindness and generosity of thousands of incredible staff and volunteers and hundreds of thousands of supporters.
That's the power of passion and philotimo the power of community and the greatness of the Melbourne Community the greatness of this city of ours. That's why I love Melbourne so deeply and I'm so proud of it is that we are this extraordinary city full of incredible Indigenous, Refugee and migrant people in the most multicultural cities in the world. And we've come together over more than two decades to say 'welcome' we the people, the people of Victoria the people of Melbourne have come together to say' welcome'.
(footage of Kon) Welcome to our first CO Bulletin from our brand new home of hope here in Footscray.
Here is why it is so deeply problematic, Is a point in our nation's history. I'm here in the ASRC food bank. I'm coming to you from Parliament House. I need you to stand with me because our politicians have abandoned them. We've kept our doors open from day one with the food they need for their families. Food feeds the soul and the heart. We're going to win this fight. Thank you. Thank you for making this possible. Thank you for having us. Thank you and to help keep the flame of hope burning brightly in the hearts of all. Thank you
Over the last two plus decades of running the ASRC I've seen the greatest moments of joy and the greatest moments of despair. The horrors of what I've seen done to people, the lives lost because of our cruel immigration policies the families devastated. I've been there in moments as a lawyer for people where they've heard 'you've been found to be a refugee' and to watch people just collapse in front of you with absolute joy and at the same time the sort of light coming back into them and the colour back back into them because they're suddenly free. So that's what keeps me going is 'hope' is (Greek) love, is idealism, his passion is that even at my age now I'm just as passionate and fired up and and intolerant of Injustice as I was when I was when I was 13 years old. And just as much I want to see change, and just as much I believe in the goodness of people, and the goodness of Melburnians. Dad taught me the most precious lesson which is you treat everyone the same whether I have a dollar or a million dollars you value people on their character, and I want to live a legacy that my family can be proud of.
