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Outlook: Helping refugees saved my life

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Kon Karapanagiotidis wears an apron and smiles broadly with outspread arms

02/09/2021 GMT

Helping refugees saved my life

BBC World Service - Outlook, Helping refugees saved my life

At 28, Kon Karapanagiotidis started a charity that would become a lifeline for thousands

A childhood of racism and bullying left Kon Karapanagiotidis with deep scars. But as a young man he decided he would help others to try and heal himself.

Kon Karapanagiotidis has always felt like an outsider. Growing up as the child of poor Greek migrants in rural Australia, he was bullied and subjected to racist taunts that left deep scars. But as a teenager he discovered a book by Dr Martin Luther King that changed his life. Spurred by the words he read, he decided to try and help others to heal himself. He volunteered at charities every day of the week - working at a homeless shelter one day and a suicide helpline the next. In his late twenties, he started a little food bank for asylum seekers and refugees living in Melbourne. The organisation grew in response to huge demand and eventually became a lifeline for thousands of people. The Asylum Seeker Resource Centre is now one of Australia's largest and best-known charities helping refugees and after 20 years Kon remains its outspoken leader.

Iris Apfel became a fashion icon in her mid-eighties after an exhibition of her clothing and accessories at New York's Metropolitian Museum of Art sparked a storm of interest in her unique style. She has just turned 100. Outlook's Saskia Edwards met her in 2018.

Gerardo Weiss is known as the Beatles' barber of Buenos Aires. Colm Flynn talked to - and sang with - him at his shrine to the Fab Four in 2019. 

Picture: Kon Karapanagiotidis	
Credit: Asylum Seeker Resource Centre

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