Tag Archives: UNDP-ACT

by | January 18, 2013 · 5:19 pm

PeacePlayers Gets Animated!

A glimpse into the upcoming animated PeacePlayers video

A glimpse into the upcoming animated PeacePlayers video

PeacePlayers – Cyprus is excited to announce they are currently working in collaboration with the Cyprus Community Media Centre (CCMC) in creating an innovative animated video that will promote the capacity of sports as a practical and proven vehicle to create social change. The finished product will become a tool used across our PPI sites as well as by our Technical Assistance team consulting on projects and with organizations worldwide.  With the video we seek to empower organizations, expand the field of current practitioners, create a meaningful and powerful tool that coaches and teachers can use while working with youth.

Three months ago The Peace It Together Network, funded through UNDP-ACT and USAID, called for proposals in the launch of The Knowledge and Innovation Fund grants. According to the Peace It Together: “The Knowledge and Innovation fund was developed to offer new perspectives and approaches to peace building.  Challenging those seeking to submit proposals to develop innovative ideas towards the promotion of peace and reconciliation and enhance dialogue.”

Drawing upon PeacePlayers International’s global experiences in using sport to bridge divides, PeacePlayers – Cyprus applied for and received full funding for an animated video project. The project will be composed of 5 short chapters that will follow one young girl, growing up within a community afflicted by conflict, and how the power sport helps her overcome it.

Though, we at PPI do not have a lot of experience with animation, we do posses a tremendous amount of institutional knowledge on the power of sport in conflict transformation.  We are harnessing this knowledge to collaborate with our creative associates at the CCMC and Ze’deM Media to write scripts, create storyboards, and bring it all to life with animation. The final project should be completed in only 2 months!

For progress updates on PeacePlayers upcoming animation, continue to follow our blog as well as our PeacePlayers – Cyprus Facebook page.

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by | July 29, 2011 · 1:34 pm

The PPI – Cyprus Summer League

28 youth and 6 professional coaches participated in the PeacePlayers Summer League.

Over two weekends in July, PPI-CY brought together 28 Greek-Cypriot and Turkish-Cypriot boys, ages 15-17, to play in a competitive full court bicommunal basketball league. The boys were divided into bicommunal teams with least 3 Greek-Cypriots and 3 Turkish-Cypriots per team. Each team was coached by a professional Turkish-Cypriot or Greek-Cypriot coach from basketball clubs in both communities that were brought together through PeacePlayers. Each child played in 5 full length, official games, culminating with a tournament to determine the Summer League champion. Each day after the matches, all the participants sat down and ate food together, giving them another chance to develop new friendships.

Two players reach high for the ball.

The event was considered a great success, not only were there hours of entertaining basketball, but the feeling of bicommuinalism was palpable. For over half of the youth participants, this was their first bicommunal experience ever; and for 6 of the youth leaders, this was their first introduction to a bicommunal event. Greek-Cypriots and Turkish-Cypriots who had never had the chance to meet one another were finally coming together to participate in the sport they loved. For two boys in particular, Omac and Marios (both 15), the league had a lasting impact. A month later the two boys tell PeacePlayers that they still chat everyday on Facebook, and are very excited about attending the PeacePlayers summer camp being held this weekend (they even requested to be put on the same team).

Below is a short video to music of the PPI-CY Summer League. We hope you enjoy!


The PPI-CY Summer League was funded by UNDP-ACT.

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by | June 3, 2011 · 1:38 pm

PPI-Cyprus Participates in Three NGO Fairs

PPI-CY Managing Director Marina Vasilara, and PPI Fellow Adam Hirsch talk about PeacePlayers at an NGO Fair in Nicosia.

This past month, PPI-Cyprus participated in three NGO Fairs that promoted the work of 39 community organizations. Two of the fairs were organized by ENGAGE, Do Your Part for Peace project and funded by UNDP-ACT. The ENGAGE fairs attracted some 3,000 people under the slogan, “Come and meet some of the NGOs of Cyprus and discover their good work!” These all-day events were celebrations of the work of the island’s busy civil society sector. “The fair was a great way to bring these different organizations together and celebrate the diversity of the work we each do, and gave us a chance to talk about future collaborations,” one NGO representative said.

PPI Fellows set up a basketball hoop for the Limassol fair.

DJs, music, dance, choir and theater groups created a festive atmosphere, while a range of educational and recreational activities, such as balloon creations, face painting, clay sculpture, painting, giant chess games, backgammon,  were offered for the children. PPI-CY was proud to be there and participate in the festivities. We set up a basketball hoop, inviting kids and adults to partake in some mini-basketball and try out their luck against the PPI Fellows in games like “PIG” and Knockout.

The third fair was organized by the Cyprus Youth Board and focused on promoting volunteerism within the European Union. On hand was the Cyprus Minister of Education and Culture, Mr. Andreas Dimitriou, and EU Commissioner for Education, Culture, Multilingualism and Youth, Mrs. Androulla Vassiliou. Both made time to shake hands with PPI-CY staff and talk about the impact that PeacePlayers is having in Cyprus.

Traditional Cypriot dancers performed at one of the NGO fairs.

PPI-CY gained a lot of publicity from the fairs by handing out hundreds of flyers, talking to parents and community members, and signing up local youth to participate in upcoming events. It is very important for PPI-CY to spread its message throughout Cyprus, and also begin to get influential people supporting its mission so that we can continue to grow and bring new children into the program. These three fairs were great steps towards that goal, and we are looking forward to partaking in similar events in the future.

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by | December 4, 2009 · 7:53 am

The Cyprus Network for Youth Development

PPI-CY is a member of Cyprus' biggest youth network.

PeacePlayers International – Cyprus was created in 2006 through a grant from UNDP-ACT (United Nations Developement Programme – Action for Cooperation and Trust in Cyprus), and has since received funding from the UNDP in some capacity every program year, including the current one. That makes it part of a unique fraternity created by the UNDP, the Cyprus Network for Youth Development, which comprises over 10 NGO’s that specialize in everything from environmental protection, to traditional Cypriot folk dancing, to using the game of basketball to foster mutual understanding and reconciliation (That’s us!).

Earthdance will continue to bring Cypriot children together for the next two years with the help of the UNDP.

The goal of the network is “to bring together organizations and individuals from all over Cyprus…that address the needs of young people throughout the island, seeking to inspire and energize them to create a peaceful, sustainable Cyprus.” Network activities are very diverse: bicommunal summer camps, nature studies, walking tours, camping trips, overseas missions, and basketball festivals are just a few of the activities offered to the youth of Cyprus in the past six months.

Over the course of the next two years, through funding from UNDP-ACT, PPI – CY and a partner in the network, the Turkish-Cypriot NGO Hasder, will stage two massive bi-communal youth festivals centered around Earthdance, the world’s largest simultaneous peace concert. This past September, over 200 people attended PPI – CY’s portion of the festival, a bi-communal 3-on-3 tournament at the Phanaromeni School in the Old City of Nicosia. In addition to this, UNDP-ACT will provide financial support for PPI – CY to construct an outdoor basketball court in the UN-controlled buffer zone. This new court will allow PPI – CY to have its own court to use at any time and provide a shared space for PPI – CY participants to call their home.

Ledra Palace in the U.N. Buffer Zone, the future home of PPI - CY's home court.

The Cyprus Network for Youth Development has also provided opportunities for PPI – CY’s teams and participants that otherwise would not have been available to them. Four PPI – CY participants went on a bi-communal mission trip to Northern Ireland this past summer, and 15 current and former PPI – CY members attended the Doves Olympic Movement bicommunal summer camp in Agros. While we believe that basketball has a unique power to bridge divides, bicommunal experiences outside of the court undoubtedly can contribute to our ultimate goal of reconciliation.

PPI – CY thanks its partners Hasder and UNDP-ACT for continuing to provide financial assistance to our organization and helping us continue our work. We are also very thankful to be a part of the Cyprus Network For Youth Development. With a tip of our caps to our fellow Network members, we wish them all the best in their endeavors in the new year!

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by | October 19, 2009 · 4:42 am

A Hole in the Fence Between Neighbors

This month, PeacePlayers International’s Director of Operations, Tal Alter, is on a tour of three of our international sites. The trip is fairly routine – a way for Tal to build relationships and help keep all our global operations on the same page – but we asked him to do something a little different this time. He’ll periodically be “guest posting” here on From the Field. Normally based in Washington, we hope he can provide a unique perspective on the progress PPI is making in Cyprus, Israel and Northern Ireland. Today: Cyprus.

On my recent trip to Cyprus, I was reminded of the role of perspective in the symbolic significance of a border…

On Tuesday night of last week, PPI Fellow Rory O’Neil drove me to within a few hundred yards from where I was to meet up with Orhun Mevlit, PPI’s Turkish-Cypriot Program Coordinator, for dinner.

Rory and Orhun live in the same city (Nicosia) and not more than 10 minutes from each other (truth be told, the greatest distance between two homes on the small island of Cyprus is only a few hours).  Their homes, however, fall on different sides of a “buffer zone” border, maintained by the United Nations, which separates the north part of Cyprus from the south.

The Ledra Palace within the UN administered Green Zone

The Ledra Palace within the UN administered Green Zone

So, to meet up with Orhun, Rory dropped me off at the southern entrance of the Ledra Palace checkpoint.  There, I got out of the car and walked through a gate past Greek-Cypriot policemen, who offered me nothing more than a nod.  I proceeded north, alone, on an unlit street. A quiet restaurant on my right and an apartment-like complex with United Nations markings on my left highlighted the short, quiet trip.  Five minutes later, I came upon another gate, where a Turkish-Cypriot policeman in a booth asked for my Passport.  A quick scan and a stamp on a separate piece of paper later, and I walked through.  A few feet away, Orhun waited for me in his car.  I jumped in, and we were off to dinner.  Although all street and store signs were now in Turkish, the north of Nicosia very much resembled the south.

For me, a U.S. Citizen, crossing from one side of Cyprus to the other required nothing more than a Passport and the desire to get from one side to the other.  For the hundreds of children in our Cyprus program, the border is also relatively easily crossable, but before they joined PeacePlayers, those few hundred yards could seem as significant as the few thousand miles between PPI’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. and the same Ledra Palace border. Being able to cross a border is one thing; ever actually doing so is something else entirely.

With a little bit of a nudge, PPI has helped to shrink the symbolic distance of the border for our participants, who now cross many times each year for bi-communal activities.  But while walking to meet Orhun, the realization struck me, as it often does on my visits to PPI sites: as long as the border exists, so will the need for such encouragement.

A jump ball at practice last week in the northern town of Lapta/Lapithos.

A jump ball at practice last week in the northern town of Lapta/Lapithos.


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