Katerina Downward has committed her professional life to defending human rights, with leadership experience in the fields of humanitarian response, project and program management in NGO settings and a longstanding commitment to social justice. She joins the Earth Commons Institute as Managing Director for Greece, where she previously headed the Department of Education & Integration at an award-winning Greek non-governmental organization at the forefront of efforts to protect and support refugees. Over the six years she served METAdrasi – Action for Migration and Development, she set up several schools for refugee children on the Greek frontier islands where most refugee arrivals through the nation’s sea borders occur, and as their department head, led a team of more than 60 educators overseeing the implementation of 17 education programs across the country, serving more than 3000 refugees and migrants annually. Additionally, she helmed METAdrasi’s program supporting survivors of torture, through certification and training of frontline workers in identification of survivors. Previously, she worked at an education nonprofit in New York partnering with under-resourced schools to implement curricular materials on social and environmental justice issues. She graduated Magna Cum Laude from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and obtained a Master’s degree in Human Rights, with distinction, from the London School of Economics. During her formative and academic years, she supported human rights and civil society organizations across four continents and interned at the Washington Peace Centre and Amnesty International.
