A group of prominent academics from Harvard, Cornell, Oxford and other universities are drawing up an official nomination for Greek islanders for the Nobel Peace Prize, recognizing them for their efforts to help over a million refugees who passed through their islands.
The Nobel committee welcomes academics, parliamentarians, scientists and professors from around the world to submit official nominations.
According to The Guardian, the team of academics are preparing an official nomination on behalf of the volunteer workers and average citizens who showed solidarity with over million refugees who passed through Greek islands.
The nomination will note that people from a country already dealing with its own financial crisis responded to the refugee crisis with “empathy and self-sacrifice”, opening homes to the homeless and risking their own lives to save and take care of others.
In addition to the academics who are making the official nomination, a grassroots petition went viral, so far gaining almost 300,000 signatures.
According to Steven Katradis, the organizer of the petition:
The native populations of the Greek Islands in the Aegean Sea (and many other external, worldwide, non-profit organizations and diaspora Greeks) have done and are doing anything possible to help the displaced Syrian refugees and make them as comfortable as possible, although they themselves have very little to offer, despite being subjected to a severe economic crisis for many years. They have shown their Christ-like behavior with acts of “filotimo”, love, respect and “filoxenia” to those who are total strangers to them! Their acts and sacrifices shall not go un-noticed, because they are significant contributors to World Peace and Stability, and are clear examples of LOVE for others in the world to use and to learn from!
According to The Guardian’s report, the nomination deadline is 1 February, but the organizers of the official nomination have already met the Greek minister for migration, Yiannis Mouzalas, who they say has offered his government’s full support.
