The Academy of Athens presented its annual awards for 2017 during a celebratory event held 21 December 2017 at the Academy’s ceremonial hall.

The “ELPIDA”Association of Friends of Children with Cancer was awarded a Gold Medal, the Academy of Athens’ highest honour, for its “active and steadily growing charitable work”.

The founder and president of the Association, UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador Marianna V. Vardinoyannis, was there to receive the Academy’s Gold Medal, presented by Academy of Athens President, Loukas Papademos, before an audience of academics and guests at the grand event.

The 3-day international “Hellenistic Alexandria: Celebrating 24 centuries” conference, organised by the Marianna V. Vardinoyannis Foundation, the Alexandria Center for Hellenistic Studies at Bibliotheca Alexandrina, the Acropolis Museum and the Mariolopoulos-Kanaginis Foundation for the Environmental Sciences and taking place under the auspices of His Excellency, the President of the Hellenic Republic, Prokopios Pavlopoulos, was opened on the 13th of December 2017 in the amphitheatre of the Acropolis Museum, by UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador, Marianna V. Vardinoyannis.

“This day is a great moment in time for our Foundation, Ms Vardinoyannis said, as we are embarking on an initiative of national significance on which we have been working for several months,