Gabrielle Tay
Founder, Executive Director of Action for Women
The Hope Brigade Athens, 2026
Courage is not loud. It is the quiet decision to rise. Every act of courage reshapes the world and none of it is too small to matter.
Gabrielle Tay is the founder of Action for Women (AFW), a women-led organisation addressing gender-based violence in Greece. After more than a decade in international legal practice, she focused on women’s rights, building practical pathways to safety, support, and dignity for women including trans women, who are survivors of violence and systemic exclusion.
She builds women-led routes to safety where systems fail: Dignified survivor-centred support that protects dignity and restores choice. Her work is shaped by the women AFW supports and grounded in a simple belief: solidarity must be practical, translated into structures people can actually reach, because safety should never be a privilege. She believes courage is rarely dramatic: it is the quiet decision to rise, and lasting change begins when women are believed, protected, and able to lead their own lives.