| Posted: May 18
2010,12:10 |
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Postal address of
organization/institution |
Pericleous 32, 2020
Strovolos, Nicosia, Cyprus
|
E-mail address of
organization/institution |
dovesolympicmovement@yahoo.com |
Website address of
organization/institution |
www.dovesolympicmovement.com |
Telephone of
organization/institution |
(00357) 99534943 |
PRIORITIES: All of the
organization's domains of culture of peace activity |
EDUCATION FOR PEACE
HUMAN RIGHTS
UNDERSTANDING,
TOLERANCE AND SOLIDARITY
|
TOP PRIORITY: The
organization's most important culture of peace activity |
UNDERSTANDING, TOLERANCE AND SOLIDARITY |
PARTNERSHIPS AND NETWORKS:
What partnerships and networks does your organization participate
in, thus strengthening the global movement for a culture of peace?
|
Cyprus
Network for Youth Development
University of
Nicosia
Collaboration with multiple national and
international organizations |
ACTIONS: What activities have
been undertaken by your organization to promote a culture of peace
and nonviolence during the ten years of the Decade? If you already
made a report in 2005, your information from 2005 will be included
in the 2010 report. |
Doves Olympic Movement is an educational sports
initiative founded in 2001 and aims to utilize the Millennium
Development Goals of the United Nations under the framework of the
philosophy and principles of the Olympic Movement. Doves Olympic
Movement aims to provide non-traditional research oriented
educational sport practices to resolve a number of social problems
such as cross-cultural intolerance, juvenile delinquency, isolation
of marginalized populations and racism. Through our program,
population from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds, gender, religion
and ethnicity, come together and engage in activities that
facilitate character development and promote social inclusion.
Our program aims to use sports to achieve stability,
inclusion, peace and personal development.
In the summer of
2005 the Doves Olympic Movement conducted the first bi-communal
educational sport initiative in Cyprus. Since then, more than 700
youngsters and 50 instructors got together under the flag of the
Olympic Movement and participated in our Summer Camps. Through the
words of the instructors of our summer program: “…this camp was a
very strong verification that human beings have no differences”.
Another instructor mentioned that “…everybody feels that one week is
not enough. We all wanted to stay here at least for one more week.
In the camp we established strong relationships; we became one big
family and we should continue to see each other after the camp”.
Such reactions give us courage and dedication to continue and extend
the activities of our program beyond the weeklong camp. Such
expressions indicate that sports, in a pure educational and non
political setting, have the potential to empower individuals and
societies. It seems that sports, under certain conditions,
have the power to prepare the ground for a better future of the
youth of our island.
Since 2005, 5 youth camps took place
(International Youth Camps 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 and Winter
Leadership Camp 2007), where youngsters from the two main
communities of Cyprus came together and participated not only in
sport activities, but also to cultural and educational ones.
For most of those young people it was their first time that
had the opportunity to experience interaction with people from the
other community. Outcomes from research performed throughout
those camps, showed that both Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots
participants experienced positive gains in social perspective
taking, cross cultural differences, knowledge, attitudes and
behaviors, as well as self-efficacy concerning global citizenship.
Even more outstanding are the results that reveal that the
majority of both the participants and instructors agree that they
are able to transfer what they have learned through the program to
real world situations such as the issues in Cyprus and issues that
bother European Union. Through data collection and analysis it
has been also revealed that activities such as those offered by the
program enable participants to improve their conflict resolution
skills, their ability to consider perspectives of others, and
indirectly, implicitly or explicitly their understanding of the
issues in Cyprus.
An advantage of the program is that is not
restricted to the implementation of summer camps. The program
actually starts with a pre-camp experience where youth, instructors,
and the organizers come together to create the structure of the
summer camps and include the elements they consider essential.
All individuals involved in the process actively participate
in the process of designing the program by participating into
committees according to their interests that
determine the way
activities will be implemented. This participatory approach
enables the program to draw from multiple expertise and creativity,
and brings the program more closer to the interests and needs of the
population that addresses. Providing the opportunity to
participate from the initial stages of preparation, makes
individuals take responsibility for the implementation of the
program and creates a feeling of ownership for the program, which
then results in a passion to make it work. During this
preparation phase, there is also an effort of inclusion of the
parents in the program, by providing informative workshops.
Another major component of the program is that the program
becomes the tool which provides opportunities to young people to
become active citizens and act upon their environment after the camp
is over. For that reason, during the camp, participants get
together and develop an action plan regarding a thematic area that
interests them. The young people identify situations in the
Cypriot society that need to be addressed, think of ways to address
them, and come up with an action plan that implement throughout the
year. This not only enables individuals to become active
citizens and transfer their skills into real life situations, but it
also enables youngsters who otherwise consider themselves “enemies
for each other” to work together to achieve a common goal.
Examples of such activities are the following: tree plantings
in burned areas of Cyprus, participation in charity events to raise
money for a cost, and creation of a plan for dissemination of
re-usable bags to the communities. An outstanding example of
what young people can do when the environment is supportive and
provides opportunities is when young people got together, wrote a
proposal, and got funding from the European Union to implement
a project regarding people with disabilities to bring awareness to
the society in Cyprus about the difficulties people with
disabilities face in their everyday lives.
During the years
2006-2008, the Doves Olympic Movement also developed a pioneer sport
unit which is called “Sport, Education and Development Unit”
(SEDU). The SEDU is being implemented in collaboration with a
Municipality in the capital of Cyprus. Through the SEDU, children
have the opportunity to play sports, learn about life time skills,
health and wellbeing issues and engage in individual and collective
initiatives. The purpose of the SEDU is to provide a program that
use sports as “social medicine”. This is facilitated by engaging the
youth of the island in educationally focused sport activities that
are based on the principle of balance between a healthy mind and a
healthy body (mens sana in corpore sano). The after school
educational initiatives aim to promote sportsmanship and
interpersonal relationships. Hopefully, the positive outcomes of the
development of such units (SEDU), in a theory driven, non political
and non traditional sport environment will inspire the educational
and sport authorities to replicate similar projects throughout the
island of Cyprus.
More than 120 participants met daily within
the SEDU and practiced their favorite sports activity (both sport
activities that are well known in Cyprus, as well as sport
activities that are not traditionally performed in Cyprus). The
program also incorporated a cultural component. The participants
participated in dancing, theatre, music, and painting. During the
weekends the participants were exposed to many other non-traditional
sports activities, such as rock-climbing, skiing, shooting, arching,
canoeing and so forth. The educational part of the program was
implemented in two phases: through discussions during the daily
meetings (emotional education, conflict resolution, peace
education), as well as during the weekends with
lectures/presentations from experts on themes that are of great
interest to youth, such as sports and violence/ hooliganism,
nutrition of athletes, anorexia-bulimia, Olympic Values, sports
psychology, technology (Skype, Global Ed., Filming etc), how to be
safe in the road, environmental awareness, astronomy and so forth.
Giving to the young people alternative ways of spending their time,
has been proven to be a way to reduce delinquency acts and promote
healthy lifestyles and in such a way, create healthier societies.
Due to lack of funding the SEDU terminated their activities in
2008, but there is an effort for obtaining further funding to
continue the specific activities to the certain municipality and
replicate it in other areas of Cyprus as well. |
PROGRESS: Has your
organization seen progress toward a culture of peace and nonviolence
in your domain of action and in your constituency during the second
half of the Decade? |
There
is a tremendous progress toward a culture of peace and nonviolence
when programs that are in place provide opportunities for an
advancement of the society. In the case of Cyprus, where the
conflict is on-going, it is important to provide young people with
opportunities to interact with the "others" and provide an
understanding that this is not the only way that things can be.
During the second half of the Decade, has been a change
on the society of Cyprus. While in 2005, the number of
individuals that wanted to participate in programs that had to do
with the "other" community was minimal, that number kept increasing
as the years passed. The pool of young people that first came
into the program and their positive experiences became the source of
attraction for other youngsters. Additionally, the bonds created
through the program become as an antivirus to the hatred spread in
the society of Cyprus. Even though, we still have a long way
to go in Cyprus regarding the understanding and tolerance between
the members of the two main communities, as well as other minority
groups that live in Cyprus, there has been definitely a progress in
that area, which the civil society and the government have the
obligation to continue pursuing. |
OBSTACLES: Has your
organization faced any obstacles to implementing the culture of
peace and nonviolence? If so, what were they? |
There
were multiple obstacles during the implementation of the culture of
peace and non-violence. Those were:
- Obtaining funding
for the implementation and continuation of the activities has been a
struggle throughout the years
- The media have played a major
role in opposing obstacles in the implementation of a culture of
peace
- The luck of political consistency , the physical
barriers, the
unaceptable status quo and the "nationalist
narratives and false promises" that lead to segregation and misguide
public oppinion
- The existing stereotypes and hatred that
govern the Cypriot society which become harder to alter once the
media and the politicians (mentioned above) perpetruate them
|
PLANS: What new engagements
are planned by your organization in the short, medium and long term
to promote a culture of peace and nonviolence? |
-
Continuation of the activities carried so far
- Collaboration
with the governmental authorities to include the positive elements
that have been shown to be effective into other areas
-
Creation of a network that will allow the expansion of the
activities |
GLOBAL MOVEMENT: How do you
think the culture of peace and nonviolence could be strengthened and
supported at the world level?? |
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