Projects

Our very first event focused on bringing various groups, organisations, and individuals together at the Old Nicosia Town for an event/information session on Diabetes Awareness Day.

We began planning and campaigning for the event throughout 2014. The event was held in January 2015.

This event took place at the Ledra Palace Hotel in the buffer zone of Nicosia, Cyprus.

The event was styled as a conference, aimed at introducing various themes and speeches across different professional fields.

We had the pleasure of welcoming the-then UN Special Adviser of the Secretary-General on Cyprus, Espen Barth Eide. The conference also included prominent speakers from the entrepreneurship, arts & culture and education sectors in Cyprus.

Through a series of various events, workshops, and volunteering activities, in partnership with different youth organisations including Rotaract, the Nicosia Hub organised a two-year wide event on refugees, particularly addressing the refugees at the Kofinou camp.

Several Nicosia Shapers took active participation in engaging with the refugees, providing a more fun environment to adults and children, amidst the hardships of the refugee crisis and the uncertainty these families and individuals had found themselves in.

Full-day activities included:

• Yoga For Kids by Haris Maratheftis

• Fun Beach Tennis for Kids and Adults by Nicosia Beach Tennis Club

• Art for Kids by Avgousta Demosthenous

• Meditation Kung Fu by John & Heather Peace by Praxis

• Morning Session: Balloon Creations by Georgia Vergou

• Half day: Tavli Competition

• All day: Boom – Fun for Kids

• Afternoon: Distribution of Hygiene Products and Food to Refugees

Since our inception at 2014, the Nicosia Hub has been organising various 'Meet the Leaders Sessions'. These sessions aim at enhancing and encouraging leadership, active civic engagement, and overall participation across the wider community.

From political to established business figures, we constantly engage with various stakeholders that strive for a better future not just for Nicosia, but for Cyprus as a whole.

This is one of our defining projects that highlights our culture and diversity as a Hub.

We organised a 3-day regional retreat in late 2019 for our regional community. We were joined by Shapers across Europe, who took part in different activities.

• Day 1 (arrival): A walking tour, exploring the Old Nicosia Town inside the walls. The day finished with a traditional Cypriot feast at one of Nicosia's most famous taverns

• Day 2 (training & workshops): We organised a series of workshops with inspiring speakers, including our Community Manager, Albina Krasnodemska, at the Multifunctional Foundation of the Municipality of Nicosia. The day concluded with a fancy Japanese-Peruvian dinner at one of Nicosia's night hotspots

• Day 3(hiking expedition): We boarded a coach and went up to the mountainous areas within the Nicosia district, walking around nature and engaging in a final self-reflective session along the river. Following lunch at a traditional tavern, all Shapers boarded the coach and headed by to the city centre, in preparation of flying back home.

In early 2020, the Nicosia Hub organised an event with three experts discussing the varying dimensions of gender, politics, violence, and entrepreneurship across Cyprus and beyond. The event included a full interactive discussion with the audience, as well as an introductory video kindly provided by the International Labour Organisation, addressing the issue of gender equality at the workplace.

A drinks & networking reception followed. The event was co-organised with the Diplomatic Academy at the University of Nicosia.

With the launch of the first lockdowns of the COVID-19 pandemic across Europe, we all found it rather difficult to come to terms with the new reality and the danger of the situation. At the same time, we had to revise our activities and priorities for the remaining year, given the sudden disruption and the normalisation of remote working and video calling.

As such, our Hub took immediate action by hosting numerous webinars to tackle a number of issues, ranging from topics including but not limited to:

• mental health

• employability

• post-COVID life

• new global orders

• nutrition, fitness and staying active

• misinformation

• a special event with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson on repatriating Cypriots amidst the pandemic

The series was well-received and was featured across popular websites and on social media.

Following the initiative set forth by GS Rome Hub, the Nicosia Hub has joined the Europe-wide network #EUnite. The network itself is dedicated to organising digital events and awareness campaigns to promote the ideals of “Unity in Diversity” in the period leading to the annual Europe Day on May 9th, including the whole of EU/Europe Week celebrations. This is an annual event that numerous European Hubs are part of.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Rome Hub approached various European Hubs to connect young Shapers from all around Europe, engaging in creative initiatives and upholding European values, solidarity, and unity during these troubled times.

The Nicosia Hub, during the first edition, took an active part in the brainstorming, planning, and co-organising different sessions, having simultaneously both a regional as well as a local impact, within both Nicosia, but also elsewhere in Europe. The Hub executed online campaigns throughout the preparatory phase ahead of Europe Day, in order to raise awareness about the importance of commemorating the date. Shapers from the Nicosia Hub got in touch with the local authorities to inform them of their initiative, collaborated with the Head of the European Parliament's Representation in Cyprus, engaged in cross-hub online discussions, and actively informed their community of the commemoration of 9th May. A series of workshops and other events were live streamed from multiple locations.

Working from outside the traditional office environment, or ‘Remote e- Working,’ has seen a rise over recent years. The advancement of technology has allowed all the more companies the opportunity to introduce flexible hours and the ability of their employees to work from home certain days a week. Much research and discussion has revolved around this fairly new concept, since remote e- Working is accompanied with various benefits, but also downsides.

The COVID-19 lockdown, however, has witnessed a sudden shift to ‘working from home’ from businesses and organisations, many of which were not yet ready for this ‘new reality.’ In many cases, this left employers and employees feeling unprepared and unsupported. In other cases, the flexibility working from home has to offer and the comfort of one’s home in fact increased productivity.

Responding to recent circumstances, the Global Shapers Nicosia Hub organised a webinar entitled, “Working from Home: Does it Work?” Speakers included:

• Maria Charalambous, Lecturer in Business and Occupational Psychology at Coventry University, MBPsS BSc MSc, PhD Candidate

• Katerina Andreou, Founder of HR Innovate, BSc (Hons) Psychology, MSc Occupational Psychology

Through their combined knowledge and expertise in Occupational Psychology, Maria and Katerina addressed the complicated impact of remote e-working on both employers and employees, ways to stay productive and achieving work/life balance when working from home.

This event included inspiring and motivational speakers from academia, the research sector, and individual members from society, who sought to raise awareness over disability issues, with particular reference to the workplace.

We welcomed several experts, including from the Cyprus Institute of Neurology and Genetics, the University of Nicosia, clinical psychologists, as well as a patient with muscular dystrophy.

They all talked about their experiences and shared their insights with regards to the event's topic. The event was streamed live by the Cyprus Institute of Neurology and Genetics and was supported by TELETHON.

Beyond the COVID-19 pandemic, we are facing one of the greatest workforce challenges of the 21st century: the skills gap for young workers in the global economy. The recent ILO survey on youth unemployment also finds that youth around the world have been severely and disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 crisis, especially young women. More than one in six young people are out of work as a result of the pandemic.

Investing in and re-skilling people now can help us get them back to work immediately while building more just, inclusive and resilient economies.

Skills most important for future jobs as identified by the World Economic Forum, the Brookfield Institute and the Institute for the Future:

1. Novel and Adaptive Thinking / Critical Thinking;

2. Collaboration / Team-Work / Cross Cultural Competency;

3. Digital Literacy / Data Analysis / Computational thinking;

4. Management / Decision Making;

5. Social and Emotional Skills.

Objective of the proposed project - The Great Reset – Youth Employability in Cyprus

The project concentrated on a series of workshops to inform and provide novel training to young people about the changes occurred in each sector due to COVID-19 crisis and the skills that have been identified as important to acquire in relation to each sector. These sessions looked at skill-proofing young people interested in different job sectors. Some of these interactive workshops included HR officers, managers/associates who spoke about breaking through in the specific sector, what skills that are in demand, and how to apply successfully. Other workshops provided training on the specific skills as mentioned above.

• Workshop 1: The skills and knowledge most in demand in Government

• Workshop 2: The skills and knowledge most in demand in Finance

• Workshop 3: The skills and knowledge most in demand in Civil Society Sector

• Workshop 4: The skills and knowledge most in demand in Emerging Technologies

• Workshop 5: The skills and knowledge most in demand in Entrepreneurship

• Workshop 6: The skills and knowledge most in demand in the Care Sector

• Workshop 7: The skills and knowledge most in demand in Development

• Workshop 8: The skills and knowledge most in demand in the European Union

• Workshop 9: The skills and knowledge most in demand in the Health Sector

This series was co-organised with the Youth Board of Cyprus, the European Parliament's Representation in Cyprus, and the European Commission's Representation in Cyprus.

This webinar focused on a dialogue with experienced professionals in the fields of law, marketing, and funding, who shared useful information and guidance on what needs to be taken into account to establish and evolve a successful startup company. Covering both a startup’s creation and development, participants received expert advice on which steps to take and what support schemes are available for them to choose. Selected startup founders also joined us and shared their experience, challenges and successes in their journey, while also providing useful tips to the participants.

The webinar was held in English and was accessible to all via the GS Nicosia Hub's Facebook Page. The event was supported by the Youth Board of Cyprus and Youth Makerspace Larnaka.

This event was held in Greek, as part of the overarching umbrella of "Meet the Leaders Sessions", in conversation with the Deputy Minister for Research, Innovation, and Digital Policy, Mr Kyriakos Kokkinos. It was streamed live on Facebook.

Mr Kokkinos addressed the newly formed Deputy Ministry's vision, priorities, and varying opportunities in furthering research, innovation, and the digitalisation process in Cyprus. The event welcomed representatives from the civil society sector, as well as private businesses.

Its main objective was to collect feedback and inform the society of all available opportunities and prospects in the field.

The Environmental Social Governance (ESG) Youth Initiative (#ESGandYouth) is one of the two large projects the Nicosia Hub engages with since September 2021.

#ESGYouth is a collection of various events and initiatives whereby the Nicosia Hub acts as a platform catalyst to connect various organisations from Nicosia and Cyprus. It addresses sustainability at a wider scale through much more specific environmental and social causes, while also working with a diverse range of stakeholders: civil society institutions, government, activists, businesses.

The end objective is to raise sustainable awareness across society, with the youth at the heart of the project. We believe we are in an ideal setting where we can mobilise larger numbers of youth for sustainability-related events and practices. For this very reason, our initiatives and events often focus on the youth, but without excluding the rest of the community.

The project is ongoing with a five-year plan and annual reviews (in report format).