At a glance

  • Country:
    Cyprus
  • Sector:
  • SDG Impact: 16
  • Client: EU
  • Start date: 12/2020
  • End date: 12/2025
  • Duration:
    month(s)
  • Budget: 3.499.550 €
  • Type:
    TA

WHY

The Turkish Cypriot community has expressed its clear desire for a future within the European Union. The Council is determined to put an end to the isolation of the TCc and to facilitate the reunification of Cyprus by encouraging the economic development of the TCc. In the Turkish Cypriot community “the concept and understating of “civil society” is still in a 
nascent stage and growing. Currently, CSOs in the TCc face the following issues: Weak civil society, Lack of trust among people, Lack of understanding of CSOs, Limited funding sources, Limiting enabling environment. The project "Support to civil society organizations in the Turkish Cypriot community" seeks to contribute to build, in the TCc, a stronger civil society, which supports democratic changes and confidence building measures.


WHAT

The European Commission believes an empowered Civil Society is crucial to any democratic system. It represents and fosters pluralism and can contribute to more effective policies, equitable and sustainable development, and inclusive growth. It is an essential player in promoting peace and in conflict resolution.

HOW

We have developed a new communication strategy in 2021 to further the efforts made in the project's previous phases, maintain a high level of trust, and further increase it by eliminating ungrounded public perceptions. The communication strategy is shaped from the experience of the previous phase and had taken into consideration the following:

- Increase Civic Space's visibility and EU support to civil society by improving reach and public engagement.

- Foster visibility of CSOs' activities and outputs and increase their engagement with the community and other CSOs. 

- Increase CSOs' communication capacity directly by guiding them to create their communication strategies.

We have drafted guidelines in the following thematics : Accesibility-Mainstreaming-Guideline, The-Ecology-Mainstreaming-Guideline , Youth-Mainstreaming-Guideline, Gender mainstreaming guidline. RBA mainstreaming guideline, and held workshops to introduce them and promote them to CSOs. 

We have also introduced a Mentoring Program useing a combination of reactive and proactive methods. For the latter, the priorities of support cycles are determined by the needs and expectations of the participants, while for the reactive support, organisations can apply via e-mail or the form available on Civic Space website at any time. 

We have also introduced technical support oifr specific thematic groups, such as : Enabling environment group: Youth working group: Environment networking group:

This technical support is in the form of help desk, In addition, a chance to create networking and collaboration and resource provision. 



  

RESULTS / ACHIEVEMENTS

Under Purpose 1: 
•Communication Strategy produced. 
•Extensive use of social media channels (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Linked In, YouTube, Telegram) to make the EU's support for Civil Society visible.
•A database containing 263 Civil Society Organisations contact information and field of work for networking/partnering shows the civil society's diversity in Cyprus.
•A digital library with 304 resources to make available local and international documentation related to civil society. 

Under Purpose 2: Civil Society Organisations' (CSOs) civic engagement and role in decision-making are reinforced:
•Help desk: 445 tailor-made help desk support provided to more than 75 CSOs and activists on capacity-building topics such as project development, partnership & networking, project financial, resource provision, communication, advocacy, legal issues, etc. 
•Active Citizenship Mechanism Actions (ACM)/Grow Civic program

Purpose 3: A more enabling environment for CSOs actions is promoted in the TCc. 
•Support to drafting and finalisation of the multi-annual strategy to support civil society development in the TC community. 
•Assessment of the civil society environment in the Turkish Cypriot community (2022)
•Joint working group with the TC local bodies and CSOs initiated and followed to improve the enabling environment for CSOs.

Purpose 4: Greater links with civil society organisations in the Greek Cypriot community are encouraged.
•47 Help desk sessions for intercommunal networking and partnership 
•Environment networking group
•04 Grow Civic actions bicommunal or related to peace and reconciliation and 03 indirectly related to confidence building

HIGHLIGHTS

The project website - www.civicspace.eu - is available in English, Turkish and Greek.

Almost 36.000 views and 15.000 visitors were registered since October 2021. 

VISIBILITY