From 4-16 October Marieke and Ambra are in Cyprus to share the results of the research on the child’s right to nationality in the TRNC. On this blog, you can follow our adventures! If you haven’t yet, you can sign up in the footer to get automatic e-mails when there is a new update.
Thursday night (4 Oct) we arrived in Cyprus, with a mission to share the findings of our research with as many people as possible, and in particular those who can make a difference for children living in the TRNC (politicians, journalists, international actors). So far people are so excited about the research, we are welcomed everywhere almost as heroes! At the same time it is challenging, because everything goes “Cyprus style” (which means: take it easy, no rush, but also: you can speak to anyone, even the president, if you know someone who knows him). In addition, we’re a little anxious as to how people will react, both in the north and the south, because the topic of nationality is a VERY sensitive topic.
For example, on Friday we met with the NGO “Home for Cooperation“, who want to host an event (happening 15th of October) during which we present our research and have a discussion with the audience. We hope that people from both sides (north and south of Cyprus) will attend. During the event, will not be allowed to use “TRNC” or even “the North” but instead have to speak about “the northern part of Cyprus”.
On Saturday we picked up the printed reports. There are 350 copies in total: 250 in Turkish, 150 in English. And they look great!! After that we met with the TRNC Minister of Education. Because we found in our research that who gets (good quality) education and who does not is very much connected to the ethnicity and nationality of the child, we wanted to talk to him to share our findings. We weren’t sure whether he would be interested, but we ended up talking for almost two hours!
Later in the day we drove to Famagusta to share the reports with journalist Metin Ziya Güngör. We took some photos to go with the article (to pose professionally is still a bit of a challenge…) and he will write about the research, an article which will be sent to, and may be printed by, all newspapers in northern Cyprus. So hopefully this will spread the news.
On Monday we will publish the report online, so stay tuned for more of our adventures and to read the report…
Picking up the 350 research reports
With the TRNC Minister of Education
Taking a picture for the news article
