STUDENTS from Cyprus, Greece and Turkey are this week participating in a bi-communal project aimed at promoting diversity, trust and co-operation.
Named, ‘Coexistence and Diversity Matter,” the week-long project (July 2-9) has brought together 40 students aged between 16 and 18 in Larnaca.
Ten are from Greece, ten from Turkey, with ten coming from the Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities respectively.
The Youth Camp, as it is called, is focusing on Cyprus, as the island is one of the contested issues among the three countries. Special modules on peace education and conflict resolution hope to increase the students’ sensitivity to the values of empathy, tolerance and respect of differences. The cultural programme will help the participants to bring out the richness, difference and similarities among the three countries.
Project co-ordinator Kerstin Wittig told the Mail that, “the priority was to find students who haven’t participated in bi-communal projects before.
“There are four workshop sessions a day. For example, the one on conflict resolution focused on issues such as, what is conflict? What are its causes? How does it evolve? How can we deal with it? We talked about stereotypes and divided the students up according to their communities in order to analyse stereotypes and to see how they can be overcome.”
The students sleep at the Henipa Hotel in Larnaca, with each room containing one student from each of the four communities.
Recognising that young students are tomorrow’s responsible citizens and future leaders, the project is designed dynamically to promote active citizenship within national boundaries but also within the European community and to support potential youth leaders in developing skills to promote understanding and trust, but also co-operation and independence among their countries.
According to a press release, “the project will push forward the ideas and principles of peace, coexistence and diversity, as well as foster friendships and close co-operation among the young and active students in Cyprus, Greece and Turkey.
“In addition to the modules, there will also be creative sessions during which students will be encouraged to use the arts to find similarities and formulate links.”
Wittig added that, “two walks are on the agenda. The first is a tour of both sides of Nicosia, with the aim of showing the complete city to everybody. The second is to the occupied areas of Famagusta, Kyrenia and Salamis.”
After the camp, students will be encouraged to build on their newly created relationships and organise joint projects.
The camp is organised by the Peace Centre, a non-governmental, non-profit organisation founded in 1991. Its main aims are: to promote bi-communal understanding, a culture of peace, gender equality, demilitarisation, and the reunification of the island. It is based in Nicosia.
The partner NGOs of the project are: WINPEACE (Women’s Initiative for Peace – a Greek – Turkish NGO), KAYAD Community Centre and Under The Same Sky.
The project receives funding from the UNDP-ACT.
What the students said
Murat from Turkey described the camp as “important, because we must learn not to repeat the mistakes that our politicians make while attempting to solve the Cyprus issue.”
“It is the best way to respect different beliefs and traditions,” said Christina from Greece, while Andreas in Cyprus said: “Such a camp is really helpful as it helps people to enlarge the borders of their knowledge and ideology. It also gives people with differing points of view a great opportunity to discuss specific issues.”
Turkish Cypriots Huseyin, Sila and Cagin all agreed that: “Here we have the opportunity to discuss important issues concerning our island and we are able to discuss these with people from all the countries that are involved in the programme.
We as Cypriots want to contribute to the process of reaching peace and want to be part of the solution. Youth will play a significant role in rapprochement and workshops like this really help by giving teenagers the opportunity to come together and promote understanding and tolerance.”
