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Today we celebrated the launch of the Participatory Development Project.
This project brings together two very respected institutions,
ETEK and KTMMOB,
who are the esentially chamber and union of architects and engineers
in both communities who have cooperated on smaller projects in the past
Nicolas Jarraud, Programme Analyst, UNDP-ACT
but who now are embarking on a very ambitious cooperation.
It’s the first time that these two large bodies
which have a combined membership of 14,000 people,
are really putting their weight behind a project which really brings
the citizen into the planning process.
The main objectives that we hope to realise through this project are
Increasing the knowledge of our members,
Ahmet Ömer Çağnan, President, KTMMOB
following relevant developments in related fields,
promoting the technical cooperation as well as cultural and social activities
amongst our members,
encouraging our leaders in the peace negotiations
and last but not least
Contributing to the peace process in Cyprus.
Before reaching out to decision makers and key stakeholders all at once,
Suna Evran, Project Manager, Future Together
we believe that there are a lot of lessons to be learned,
from various projects all around the island actually,
and Kontea natural heritage and preservation project is one of them.
What we are aiming is to do the necessary research on these projects,
to extract lessons learned and also unlearned,
and by doing this, form a needs assessment
which will help us to go through with.
The sponsors of the project, funded by USAID and supported by UNDP
George Stavri, Project Manager, Future Together
allows people at the grassroots level to have an input,
to actually come in and express their views
and their views will materialise in how projects are conducted.
If you tie in the concept of space with cultural and natural heritage,
you have a winner in conceiving it.
The challenge is how to tie it all in together
and make it a very understood and simplified concept
that people will be willing and eager to join in.
It will benefit both communities,
Christos Efthyvoulou, President, ETEK
it will bring them closer together in order for people,
in this case engineers, but also ordinary citizens,
to come into contact with each other, to understand one another,
in order to prepare the public on both sides
so that they are better able to accept a solution which
the two leaders are trying to negotiate.
This is the project which really puts the individual, the citizen
at the heart of the decision making process.
It helps people remember that in the old days
they used to share common spaces,
whether these were cultural heritage monuments
or whether they were green spaces
that people used to live together and can live together again in the future.