About

Since 2007, every year an exchange takes place either in Germany or in Cyprus, alternately. The groups consists of volunteering young adults from Germany and both parts of Cyprus. The German-Cypriot Youth Exchange Programme offers an unique and participative experience including sightseeing, workshops, social activities and a lot of fun!

Aims and Goals

The aim is to bring young people from Cyprus and Germany together within the framework of tri-communal projects. This facilitates dialogue and trust not only between the two communities in Cyprus, but also between Cypriot and German youth. Furthermore, we want to strengthen the relations between the German and Cypriot partner organisations and create friendships between the participants. At the same time, we see our project as a contribution to the development of the European Union on the civil society level.

Core topics

Political history of the Cypriot conflict covering its dimensions and perceptions.
Political history of Germany with emphasis to Nazi period, division and reunification.
Influences and potentials of the European Union
Models of democracy, possibilities of participation and transparancy
Media and handling of information
Social aspects including living conditions in Cyprus and Germany from the perspective of youth and young adults, structures of socienty and gender roles.
Treatment of minorities, migration, inlcusion and exclusion
Nationalism, identity, mass graves, cultures of rememberance and symbolics

In addition, we extend our core topics by current issues.

More detailed information, specific workshop topics and activities can be found in our archive of past exchanges.

Who makes the project?

The German-Cypriot Youth Exchange Programme was initialized by the Hanover branch of the Socialist Youth of Germany - The Falcons (SJD - Die Falken) in 2007. The Falcons is an independent, education-oriented children and youth movement. The core Cypriot partners are the Greek Cypriot Socio-Political Studies Foundation IKME and the Turkish Cypriot Socio-Political Studies Foundation BILBAN (see also Partner & Friends).

The groups consists of volunteering young adults. This participative program lives and dies with the dedication of its participants (see also Faces & Voices).

Terminology and Conflict

The Cyprus conflict terminology referring to political entities as well as ethnic/national denominations is politically contested and highly emotionalised. Therefore, we decided to use geographical terms instead of using the names of the political entities. So, the internationally recognised Republic of Cyprus (RoC) is referred to as southern Cyprus and the internationally unrecognised Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) is referred to as northern Cyprus. Further more, the ethnic/national background of both of the main ethnic groups in Cyprus is referred to as Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots. When it comes to names of villages and towns that have Greek and Turkish names, we are using both of them.

Background Information about the Cyprus Conflict

Currently, we can provide background information only in German. Additional material will be made available as soon as possible. We apologize for the inconvenience. This page is still under construction.

A good publication is provided by 'Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung'. It gives a comprehensive overview on the historical background, the negociation process from 1974-2008 and different dimensions of the conflict.

APUZ 12/2009

An interesting article about the role of Cyprus in the European Union was published by Coskun:

Zypern - Eine geteilte Insel als EU-Mitglied

Furthermore, we want to recommend a German documentary, which gives a brief overview of some aspects of the Cyprus conflict and gives great impressions of the situation on the island.

ZDF neo Reportage: Das Zypern-Puzzle

Political Declarations

During the seminars, we worked out with the participants two political declarations about the purpose of the German-Cypriot Exchange Programme, our activities during the meetings and our demands for a solution of the Cyprus problem, which you can download here.

Furthermore, during the exchange 2011, which focused beside others on the situtaion of immigrants and asylum seekers in (Southern) Cyprus, we composed a common declaration to support the work of KISA.

Open Letter of support of KISA

Media Coverage

Furthermore, the German-Cypriot Exchange Programme was covered by several newspaper articles published in Germany, Northern and Southern Cyprus. We translated them to English and provide them her for download: