The Overall Objective was more efficient organization of successful and sustainable multicultural youth camps in Cyprus, to promote Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot cooperation.
The Specific Objective was: increased skills development and networking capacity of a minimum of 150 coordinators, instructors and youth leaders for organizing successful and sustainable multicultural youth camps, creating of a pool of certified coordinators, instructors and youth leaders.
Description
Project activities that took place were:
1.Trainings for multicultural youth camp coordinators, camp instructors and youth leaders (15-25 years old). A total of around 100 adults and young people were trained on topics that are relevant when organizing multicultural youth camps. This included topics like: communication, conflict resolution, use of drama, music and sports as tools for creating mutual trust and understanding, camp management, etcetera.
2.Setting up of an island-wide network of organizations that organize multicultural activities for children and youth. The idea was that such a network will strengthen the –till now- dispersed actions in this field. Multiculturalism is not very popular on Cyprus; there is a lot of distrust and even plain hatred between members of the communities. A lot of work needs to be done; such a network might support these efforts more effectively.
3.Development of four multicultural youth camp models. Based on available experience and knowledge, and together with organizations on the island, we developed four multicultural youth camp models for different age groups of children and young people (9-12,12-16,16-20 and 20-25). These models should become a kind of guidelines that will help camp organizers to implement multicultural youth camps more effectively.
4.Organization of several integrative events. Throughout the project meetings took place where people involved in the trainings met each other and learned about certain topics and shared experiences with each other. In 2008 an international conference was organized on the subject of children and youth as builders of multicultural societies. Eight of the trainees went on exchange trips to other countries like Israel/Palestine and Bosnia, to learn about multicultural youth activities in those contexts.
