Stelios Kympouropoulos looks back on his life journey full of challenges, emotions, travels, successes, achievements, great difficulties and great joys. He speaks with a smile on his face about the obstacles he was called to overcome and the stereotypes he had to break, about the moments that defined him, about normality and diversity and conveys the message that everyone in our society is valuable and entitled to live their dreams.
Member of the European Parliament and psychiatrist, Stelios Kympouropoulos, was born in Byron, in 1985. At the age of 14 months he was diagnosed with spinal muscular atrophy type II, which then gave him a life expectancy up to adolescence.
In defiance of the predictions and stereotypes of the time, he finished elementary and high school as an excellent student and in 1999 he became the first student with mobility problems, who, bypassing an outdated law, participated in the school parade on October 28 as a flag-bearer. He was the best student at Koropi High School, with his degree being 19/20 and 11/12.
In 2003 he made another dream come true, succeeding in being admitted to the Medical School of the University of Athens, where he graduated in 2010. He then majored in Psychiatry, while also attending postgraduate seminars on the subject of psychosexual disorders.
With the specialty of psychiatrist, he served in the 2nd University Psychiatric Clinic of Athens, Attikon University Hospital, until June 2019, when he was elected MEP in the European Parliament, setting a historical record with 577,114 votes.
At the same time, in the context of the constant search for solutions to improve the lives of people with disabilities, he founded I-Living, the first Organisation for Independent Living in Greece.
