By Evie Andreou
THE bi-communal Home for Cooperation (H4C) turns three on Saturday and has planned an anniversary event, although part of the celebration – the open air music festival- has been postponed due to the unsettled weather.
The music festival was to take place in the moat area by Ledra Palace with Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot bands. Entrance will be free of charge after a new date is fixed.
The official ceremony will however go ahead as planned at 4.30pm on Saturday at H4C and will be attended by the negotiators from the two sides Andreas Mavroyiannis and Kudret Özersay. The Ambassador of Norway Sjur Larsen will also make a speech. Also present will be UN Special Representative Lisa Buttenheim and members of diplomatic missions in Cyprus.
“The Home for Cooperation began operating in 2011 as a multicultural public space welcoming to everyone living in Cyprus,” said Kyriakos Pachoulides, chairman of the Association for Historical Dialogue and Research (AHDR).
Commenting on H4C’s objectives he added: “Our goal was to create an alternative public space in Cyprus accessible to everyone and it has been achieved. The events and activities organised by H4C and the different organisations we host aim to attract people here. It is an open process which gives the opportunity to people to interact with each other and engage in constructive dialogue”.
“We are pleased to see that our café is attracting people, not just from the general public but people from the diplomatic world, government stakeholders, even religious leaders. They use the café and other premises to organise events”.
The Home for Cooperation is housed inside Nicosia’s Green Line in a building constructed in the early 1950’s for residential and commercial purposes. In 1974 the building was caught in the crossfire and evacuated.
It was chosen by the AHDR in order to implement its idea of establishing an inter-communal educational centre in the buffer zone. In 2009 it received financial support from the European Economic Area Grants and Norway Grants and renovation works began in 2010.
In May 2011, H4C marked its opening with a four-day celebration. It has recently won the Europa Nostra 2014 ‘Conservation’ award along with 12 other laureates.
H4C houses AHDR, and other non-governmental organisations like the Centre for Sustainable Peace and Democratic Development (SEED), Peace Players, and the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO).
There is also a café, a conference room, a meeting room and an educational room which are used for conferences, meetings, workshops and film screenings.
