In the Antipodes, he found the life he had never dared to imagine

Ioannis Haralampidis was born in 1937 in Adriani, Drama. Still a child, he endured the horrors of the Bulgarian occupation and the traumatic experiences of forced displacement. As a teenager, he was forced to leave school and take up work as a tinsmith, supporting his family in any way he could. In 1962, the “call” of migration reached his ears, and he boarded the “Orontes” in search of a better life in Australia. It was in Melbourne that he would eventually build the life he had always dreamed of. Through hard work, integrity, and an unyielding spirit, Ioannis Haralampidis did more than simply start over in the Antipodes, he managed to support his family and build a bridge between his two homelands: the one that gave him life, and the one that gave him a future.