FLAGSHIP PROGRAMMES
National Network
Cyprus
Address
Evridikis 8, Apt. 102Country
City
NicosiaMobile Phone
+35799318625Telephone
+35799318625E-Mail (2)
charalca@hotmail.comWebsite
Click HereYear of Establishment
2019Contact Person1
Charis CharalambousJob Title 1
Lead Facilitator, Co-Initiator of CCCContact Person 2
N/AOrganisation Type
OtherFields of Activity
Democracy and community development, Others, Youth and educationGeneral Information
Conversation Cafe Cyprus (CCC) is a citizens' grassroots initiative created in Cyprus in the summer of 2019. It's co-initiators are Ms Charis Charalambous (a Greek-speaking Cypriot) and Ms Gulsen Kadri (a Turkish-speaking Cypriot). The purpose of CCC is to create and hold the space for the people of Cyprus (representing its multicultural past, present and future) to meet and engage in meaningful conversations about topics that matter. For this to happen, the CCC events are expertly formatted and facilitated so that participants can feel comfortable to introduce themselves, get to know the other participants and engage in deep conversations (of democratically voted topics) through sharing their wisdom. The participants of Conversation Cafe Cyprus meetings are typically very satisfied with the experience - they get to hear how others think about a particular subject, enrich their own wisdom and even get to hear themselves formulate and express their own opinions and experiences. As this is also a networking, peace-building and team-building opportunity, friendships have been formed among the participants and some have become regular attendees of the meetings.
Mission and Objectives
In a diverse and rapidly changing world, people need opportunities to listen and connect in a spirit of curiosity, open-mindedness, trust, respect and warmth. What kind of social capital and positive force for peace-building, can therefore, be generated by bringing people together to have conversations on topics that matter but are typically left out of day-to-day interactions? By helping people practice meeting and conversing with others from different communities, we achieve building bridges, breaking stereotypes and creating lasting connections. Doing so across the whole island of Cyprus, and with various populations, also lifts the veil of division, and allows for more genuine contact and meaningful dialogue.
The above is the mission of Conversation Cafe Cyprus, and it has been achieving it for the past 5+ years, despite being self-funded.
Main Projects / Activities
CCC held it's first face-face events in October 2019, and up to today 63 two-hour events of facilitated meaningful dialogue have been designed and implemented. The face-face events take place across the island of Cyprus (both sides of the dividing line). Despite the Covid-19 pandemic measures, CCC events were continued regularly and 12 two-hour events were held via Zoom (with participants joining from Cyprus and all around the world). All face-face events take place in selected, local cafe enterprises (not cafe-chains), in order to help participants get to know various locations across the island, while supporting these small enterprises. Forty-four different locations have been used so far to hold CCC events.
Participation to CCC events is always free. Participants pay for anything they might consume from the cafes. Hundreds of persons have attended at least one CCC event in these last 5+ years, ranging from 4-32 persons per event, and several of them have attended a number of events, as they appreciate the value of interacting and connecting with members of other communities they would normally not have a chance a meet.
A number of CCC events were co-organized with other CSOs on particular themes, such as Activism, History, Traditions, Menstruation, and Car-free neighborhoods. Some of CCC's 63 events were done with adolescent participants. Additionally, Charis Charalambous facilitated a series of 25 hour-long Conversation Cafe meetings with a bicommunal group of students at the English School, during the 2023-24 school year.
In each event, a particular format is followed, which leads participants from introducing themselves, to getting to know others better, to having deep conversations in small groups over a topic they vote on (from a selection of topics); a different topic per group. With this format, hundreds of questions (and other tools) have been used to help participants get to know each other and 127 different topics have been selected for deep conversation. All of the 127 questions have been shared on CCC’s social media pages, for the purposes of transparency, but also to allow the participants and others to continue having such conversations elsewhere.
How can you contribute to the Network in your country?
As a designer and facilitator of various experiential learning events since 2008, I (Charis Charalambous) have successfully collaborated as a Facilitator with the ALF Cyprus National Network in a number of events that it has organized. Those were a seminar/training on Intercultural Dialogue (April 2017), an online match-making event for Network Members of the 42 ALF countries, in advance of the Virtual Marathon for Dialogue (March 2021), moderation for the Virtual Marathon event ‘Inteculturalism in the city: How can we empower urban communities?’ (June 2021), and facilitation of “From presentation to representation: Interrogating gender in the media: An Online Interactive Workshop” (March 2022).
Why do you want to join the ALF Network?
The experience gained through Conversation Cafe Cyprus can be a valuable resource for the whole ALF Cyprus network. Any collaboration with other members of the Network, in Cyprus and abroad would be welcomed to advance ALF's objectives of peace-building, participatory dialogue, conflict prevention, tolerance, understanding, coexistence, youth and adult citizen engagement in decision-making processes, and inclusive dynamics.