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When Cecelia Wambach was growing up as the second-oldest child in a family of fourteen children in Pennsylvania, she never dreamed she’d be traveling to Lesbos, Greece, to help refugee children from Syria, Afghanistan, Sudan, and other war-torn countries. She’s become an ambassador of compassion. Her bicultural Italian and Bohemian Jewish roots, along with a Catholic education, imbued Dr. Wambach with a calling to use her talents and gifts to create a better world. And the Jewish concept of Tikkun Olam spurred her desire to heal the world.

A PhD in Math Education from Fordham University led her, eventually, to San Francisco State University, where she started an urban education program in an inner-city school. While serving as both professor and co-principal of John Muir Elementary School, the Muir Alternative Teacher Education program she developed won the CCTC Quality of Education Award for Service to Teachers and Children.

Dr. Wambach, who has been married to her wife for over twenty years and is now a grandmother to four, retired as Professor Emerita. But her calling to help children was strong, and she soon found herself cultivating educational solutions for refugees “stuck” on the Greek Island of Lesbos, fewer than five miles from the Turkish coast. As the founder and Volunteer Director of Refugee Education and Learning International (REAL International), a 501(c)(3), Dr. Wambach brought all of her skills to bear in giving traumatized children creative educational experiences. She also fundraised for the organization, and recruited and trained volunteers.

Collaborating with the Greek non-government organization Together for Better Days, Dr. Wambach and the volunteers at REAL International have worked to create learning centers for asylum-seeking refugees. They help unaccompanied minors and young adults displaced by war and extreme poverty to learn about topics such as computing, ecology, languages, and humanities.

According to UNICEF (United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund), only 29 percent of the twelve thousand school-age refugee and migrant children ages six to seventeen in Greece received formal education during the 2016–17 school year, and refugee and migrant children have missed an average of two and a half years of school due to conflict and displacement. Dr. Wambach hopes to improve those statistics. Back in the States, she actively recruits volunteers and accompanies them once or twice a year, for months at a time. The safe space of school allows refugees to explore, play, and learn and affords Dr. Wambach yet another opportunity to practice Tikkun Olam, to repair the world.