Cyprus Intercultural Training Initiative

The Cyprus Intercultural Training Institute (CITI) was founded by a group of Cypriot trainers from diverse backgrounds. The group was formed through a project supported by the Bi- communal Development Programme, which is funded by USAID and UNDP and is executed by UNOPS. The trainings implemented by this group were targeted to professionals of all backgrounds and the aim to promote:

• Understanding and appreciation of communities and differences between communities;
• Awareness of richness in diversity;
• Functional and sustainable inter-communal dialogue;
• Productive environment for working together;
• Understanding of the past and present situation, and their consequences;
• Empathy

CITI has also cooperated and offered its expertise on several occasions in trainings carried and funded by other organizations locally and internationally, such as the:

• Fulbright Commission
• Friendship Village Israel,
• Neve Shalmon/ Wahat al – Salam, Israel,
• SIT Vermont, USA
• IDPM, University of Manchester, UK

Workshops organized

1. Identifying Challenges of Nurses in their Workplace and Communities: Towards a Healthier Relationship with Patients, Family of Patients and Hospital Staff 04/03/04

Objectives: to provide an introduction to bi-communal activities in Cyprus; To establish networks among nurses of different educational level and background; To identify the existing challenges that nurses experience in their relationship with co-workers, hospital staff, patients and families of patients; To generate ideas on how to facilitate a healthier intercultural communication and cooperation among nurses, hospital staff and families of patients; To create an action plan to overcome the challenges; To use the findings of the workshop to start a collaboration with Greek Cypriot Nurses ‘ Association for the achievement of common goals. Target Group: 15 members of Nurses Association of Turkish Cypriot Community.

1. Training of trainers: Basic Facilitation Skills 18/09/04

Objectives: to prepare participants for facilitating future bi-communal workshops on media literacy by:

• Promoting awareness of sensitive language and building functional and sustainable inter-communal dialogue
• Developing an understanding of the differences between facilitation and training and elaborate on the facilitation techniques for a good workshop.
• Address possible problems that could be facilitators might encounter in their workshops, and ways of addressing them.

Target group: 8 participants of the Media Literacy Trainers Workshops carried under the HasNa Media Literacy Project.

1. Workshop of Multicultural Education: Promoting Appreciation of Differences in the School Environment

• To give the students the opportunity to meet with each other
• To built skills for communication and building friendships
• To sensitive them to tolerate and respect difference

Target Group: 20 English School Students, 9 Turkish Cypriot and 11 Greek Cypriots.