PO Box 50257
3602 Limassol
Cyprus
- Environment/Sustainable development
- Youth and education
Terra Cypria is a non-profit NGO, active in environmental education and environmental protection. We maintain our headquarters in Limassol and have rehabilited the abandoned primary scholl in the mountain community of Kritou Terra, transforming it into an Environmental Studies Center for young students and a site of Bicommunal Summer Camps for young Turkish and Greek Cypriots. Terra Cypria employs 9 professional and 4 technical/support staff and our annual budget is around 500,000 euros. We offer environmental education courses to children and youth from both sides of the green line in Cyprus, the EU and the Middle East. We have observer status in the proceedings of the Standing Committee of the Bern Convention for the protection of Wildlife and Habitats, we are members of the Executive Committees of EEB, ECOS and Eurosite, participate in the Parliamentary Committee for Environment, partner with other Greek Cypriot & Turkish Cypriot NGOs and are active in the bicommunal reconciliation process.
The Foundation's objectives are twofold: to sensitise the decision-makers of today through seminars, reports and other activities directed at Parliament, Government and specific target groups within the community. Terra Cypria regularly participates in the discussions of the Parliamentary Committee for the Environment. The second objective is to educate the citizens of tomorrow, i.e. school pupils and students, so that they in turn may deal with the earth and its resources more responsibly. The Centre has been in operation since 1996 offering courses to local elementary schools, secondary schools from Cyprus and the Middle East and to institutes of higher education. By July 2013 courses had been offered to over 49.000 participants. Terra Cypria is an active contributor to the process of reconciliation of the Greek and Turkish Cypriot Communities. We offer on an annual basis bicommunal youth camps in the Environmental Studies Center and participate in bicommunal environmental projects.
- Bi-communal Environmental Education Programme, 1996, funded by WWF. - ‘Training of trainers’, bi-communal project for schoolteachers, 2000-1, funded by UNOPS. - Sustainable management of the River Valleys, Eastern Paphos, 1999-2001, funded by LIFE ’99. - Bi-communal study of the cultural significance of Limassol Old Town, 2002-2004, funded by UNOPS/USAID. - Daily Life and Culture of the Turkish Cypriot Community of the Old Town of Limassol, 2006-2008, funded by UNDP-ACT Cultural Programmes - Capacity Building for Environmental NGOs, 2007-2008, funded by UNDP - BIOforLIFE, ongoing LIFE+ project, to sensitize Cypriots to importance of Biodiversity in our daily lives - ‘’Oaks for the future’’ (2009-2011), Bicommunal project funded by DG Enlargement - ADAQUA: Sustainable pollution risk management in Cypriot river basins (2011-2013, Research Promotion Foundation. -Birds for the Future (2013) Bicommunal youth project funded by Has Na - ‘Island-wide wetlands mapping platform’, bicommunal project funded by MAVA (on-going)
Our contribution will be in the Youth and the Environment fields through the bicommunal reconciliation process. Despite the political hurdles, Terra Cypria with several NGOs from the Greek Cypriot and the Turkish Cypriot Communities have continued activities on a bicommunal level, maintaining open channels of communication between the two communities, each NGO in their areas of interest. The older generation of Cypriots that spoke both languages, Greek and Turkish, who knew each community's celebrations and holy days, are dying out. The young people are growing up as strangers, spending their lives without ever meeting a member of the other community, forming their opinions from school, which in both communities serves as a propaganda machine as well as an educational center and the media. We want to continue and expand the level of bicommunal communication, disseminate the fact that it is occuring (it is now largely ignored by mainstream media), continue providing opportunities for the youth of both communities to interact and publicize the positive results from these efforts.
ALF offers a network for for continuing and expanding our bicommunal activities. Through this network we hope to access the experiance of other middle eastern and European NGOs that work in overcoming communal violence, increase understanding and especially engage the young people, reverse the process of alienation from other communities than their own. The Middle east is facing desrtification, a future of diminishing resources and environmental catastrophe on land and our sea. The network will provide the opportunity to promote our message that enviroment concequences do not recognize cultural differences and do not stop at man-made borders.The umbrella of ALF has a large pool of NGOs with whom to find common graound for cooperation, lends a degree of gravitas to these efforts and provides a limited amount of funding as material support. Terra Cypria has much to gain from joining and it also has a contribution it can make to the network itself.