Remembering 100 years of the Holocaust, let’s look not only at what we have lost, but also at what the refugees have offered us, each in their own way. Like the demonic Smyrna Ismini Phylactopoulou, who, at the age of 15, sailed across by boat from her burning city in Chios and ended up in America soon after, receiving a scholarship that Venizelos recommended to the exiles. Then the girl realized that Greece would benefit many times over if it attracted foreign students who fell in love with its history and culture, while studying part of their studies in Greece. Thus was born the college year in Athens in 1962.

The actions of the body speak for themselves. Today it has 11,000 alumni, of which about 300 are professors of Greek subjects at American universities. Every year it brings about 1000 students to our country. It has its own professors and academic premises next to Kallimarmaro. However, first of all, the College Year in Athens has every reason to be proud, because it turns the participants of its programs into citizens of the world, understanding and sensitive to other cultures.

This year marks the institution’s 60th anniversary and a few weeks ago the organization’s birthday was celebrated with a wonderful event in a cool garden in Kifisia with faculty, alumni and partners. Among other political and academic figures, Minister of Education Niki Kerameos was invited, who in her short welcome thanked CYA President Alexis Filaktopoulos for his tireless efforts to create a successful model of cooperation with American universities, which is so useful for the recent cooperation of public universities with renowned US educational institutions. Alexis Philaktopoulos, who inherited the virtue from his special mother, emphasized that the project was “a 1962 start-up without capital, the product of the restless mind of an emancipated woman who was not afraid of failure and wanted to explore her vision.” . He himself, having taken the baton, managed to develop the institution so that it meets modern complex requirements.

The “gift” at the event was made by the new US Ambassador to Greece, George Tsunis, who noted in his speech that CYA has created thousands of friends for Greece around the world. The welcome ended with Andy Zemenidis, CYA alumnus and current Executive Director of HALC (Hellenic American Leadership Council), who highlighted the need to increase the number of Greek American students to study in Greece and mentioned the revitalization of Hellenistic diaspora associations. .