Marianna Vardinoyannis

Goodwill Ambassador, UNESCO

Bio Current as of January 25, 2023

Marianna V. Vardinoyannis is a Greek philanthropist and a world advocate and campaigner for human rights and children’s health.
Her work is internationally recognized. She is Goodwill Ambassador of UNESCO and she is the recipient of the 2020 Nelson Mandela Prize of the United Nations.
She is Founder/President of “Marianna V. Vardinoyannis Foundation”, “ELPIDA Friends’ Association of Children with cancer” and “Orama Elpidas Association”.
For more than 30 years, she fights against childhood cancer helping thousands of children to be cured from cancer. Among other initiatives, she created the first Pediatric Oncology Hospital in Greece.
She struggles for the protection of human rights, children and families, people in need and refugees in Greece. She supports the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and UNESCO programs for education, peace, cultural heritage and dialogue among civilizations.
She is Founder and Honorary President of the “Alexandria Center for Hellenistic Studies”, member of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina Advisory Board and of the Leadership Councils of “Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights” and “Concordia”, trustee of the “MENTOR Foundation” and the “Nizami Ganjavi International Center”, President of the Honorary Committee of the Special Olympics Hellas, and other.
She holds a BA in Economics, BA in History of Art and MPhil in Archaeology and she has received many international distinctions for her humanitarian work.