Different Cultures, One Spirit

On November 14, 2009 Soma Akriton and Mediation Association run a youth campaign against racism, titled “Different Cultures, One Spirit”. The campaign aimed to challenge the negative views and opinions, stereotypes and prejudices about ethnicity, gender, culture, beliefs etc. The main goal of the campaign was to help challenge attitudes and behavior towards certain groups of people by working towards creating positive images of those groups and by encouraging other community members to recognize the value that those groups’ contributions bring to all levels of society in different dimensions.

The campaign “Different Cultures, One Spirit” was launched with a youth conference titled “Multicultural Cyprus’’. The conference, which took place at the buffer zone in Nicosia, was moderated by the Human Rights Foundation and KISA. Youth were brought together to exchange ideas and recommendations, while appreciating at the same time the differences and the values of a multicultural society such as Cyprus. 

A group of 15 volunteers were in charge of the sports and social activities that followed the youth conference at the Cetinkaya Sport Field. The group was consisted of young people coming from Cyprus and from the International students’ community.  Two football matches were held within three hours, with 40 players and 90 youngsters serving as audience at the field. The day was also enriched with plenty more activities such as quizzes, living library, street painting, and dancing, all of which were organized by the multicultural volunteers’ team.