He is a lawyer with postgraduate courses in Civil Law who maintains his own office, having chosen to practice trial advocacy. In November 2021, he became the first disabled lawyer in history to be elected to the new Board of Directors of the Athens Bar Association.
Evangelos Avgoulas was born in 1988 and raised in Ilion, where he currently lives and works. His family comes from Chania, Crete. He spent his early school life at the Center for Education and Rehabilitation for the Blind (CERB) in Kallithea. He then finished Primary School at the 35th School of Piraeus, participating in the “Helios” Pilot Education Program for the integration of blind students into a regular school classroom. During his high school years, he was distinguished serving as the school’s flag attendant at the 11th High School of Ilion. As a student of the 6th Unified Lyceum of Ilion, he was the flag carrier in national parades twice during the school year of 2005-2006. After graduating with an “Excellent” overall grade, he topped the Panhellenic Examinations and entered the Athens School of Law earning a performance award by the State Scholarships Foundation in 2007. He eventually received his Law degree with a GPA of 8.4/10.
For 10 years, he has served in various elected positions at the Panhellenic Association of the Blind. In June 2018, he founded Me Alla Matia NPO, aiming to provide social care services. Among others, the company operates meallamatia.gr, the only fully accessible information portal in Greece, and it develops actions throughout Greece to raise awareness of disability among the general public. The most notable one of those actions has been the famous “Dinner in the Dark”, a series of innovative experiential events, aligned with the standards of the European version of such dinners.
Evangelos is currently a scientific associate of the Metropolitan Bishop of Ilion, Acharnes, and Petroupoli, Athenagoras, for social policy issues. Furthermore, he is also serving as a Regular Representative in Greece of VIEWS, the International Organization for the visually impaired, and Vice President of Career Sign, a civil non-profit company active in career consulting and professional guidance for disabled persons. Moreover, he is a founding member of the Hellenic U.S. Alumni Association, an association for past and current participants of U.S. government-sponsored exchange programs.
From March 2017 to September 2020, he served as Chairman of the Board of Directors of the “Seaman’s Home” (Oikos Naftou) Public Law Entity, a body responsible for the insurance and social benefits of active and retired seafarers and their families.
In July 2019, he assumed the Accessibility Consultant position in ReGeneration, the largest training and employment program in Greece, which allows ever since new graduates with a disability to equally make their first steps in the labor market.
He served as a member of the Board of Directors of the Hellenic Agency for Local Development and Local Government (EETAA) from 11/03/2016 until 29/10/2019, and also as a BoD Member and President of the “Tyrtaeus” Athletic Prefectural Union for People with Disabilities.
During the last 12 years, he has been giving hundreds of lectures, authorized by the Ministry of Education, to students of every level nationwide.
He is serving as Accessibility Consultant of the Hellenic Hoteliers Federation and as Vice President of the Association of People with Disability of Ilion. In January 2015, he was appointed as a member of the Health and Social Welfare Committee of the Central Union of Municipalities of Greece (KEDE) by a decision taken by its Board of Directors.
He speaks English and French. He has published over 2,000 articles in hard-copy and online media in Greece and abroad, while regularly writing on various issues regarding education, politics, society, and more. He is one of the co-authors of “Dodeka” (Twelve), the first crowdsourced novel in Greece.
Evangelos served as a Member of the Accessibility Committee for Students with Disabilities of the University of Athens for 10 years, returning to this position in November 2021. He served as a member of the General Council of the National Federation of the Blind from 2012 to 2019, while he was the Federation’s Deputy Organizational Secretary during 2013 and 2014.
In 2010, he was elected as a Councilman for the Municipality of Ilion, alongside Mayor Nikos Zenetos, and from 2011 until 2014 he served as Deputy Mayor for Social Policy, Life Learning, Transparency, and E-Government. This made him the youngest Deputy Mayor and the only disabled person in such a position nationwide. In the local elections of 2019, he was re-elected as local Councilman for the third term in a row. He resigned in June 2021, choosing to give a cross-party character to his new position, next to the Metropolitan Bishop of Ilion, Acharnes, and Petroupoli.
From September 2014 until June 2015, he served as the Chairman of the “Phaethon” Intermunicipal Center for the Prevention of Addictions and the Promotion of Psychosocial Health. From September 2014 to September 2019, he was an appointed representative of the Municipality of Ilion in the school councils of the Special Primary School and the Special High School & Lyceum, under a unanimous decision of the City Council.
Evangelos has received many awards for his extensive social contribution by various Greek and international institutions, associations, and organizations.
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