The Home for Cooperation will be operated by the intercommunal Association for Historical Dialogue and Research, and is supported with a €750 000 grant from Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein.
"We came up with an idea of looking for a house in the buffer zone, somewhere neutral. This will be the first inter-communal building that promotes research and dialogue and issues regarding history education," explains Chara Makriyianni, President of the Association for Historical Dialogue and Research.
The Home for Cooperation will provide a common meeting place bridging the island's two communities, and where teachers, academics, researchers and NGO activists can come together to discuss history and learn from each other. "History teaching is not something static […] To be able to take the perspective of the other is a development", says Makriyianni, AHDR President.
In the video you will also meet the former owner, Avo Mangoian, who tells the story of the house from when it was built in the early 1950s and in which his family lived until 1974.
The Home for Cooperation project is approved under the EEA (European Εconomic Αrea) Financial Mechanisms by the donors Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein that will contribute most of the overall costs. The project is also supported by individuals, organisations, local authorities in Cyprus and abroad, embassies and UNFICYP. The Home for Cooperation also received significant donations by Switzerland and Sweden. Contributions were also made by friends and members of the Association for Historical Dialogue and Research, historical and intellectual societies and organisations, academics and civil society in Cyprus, Germany, Denmark, Netherlands, United Kingdom, United States of America