Monday 23 January 2012

LOCAL CYPRIOT RADIO STATIONS AWARDED FOR THEIR CONTRIBUTION TO BILINGUAL BROADCASTING

Future Worlds Center (FWC) congratulates long-time project partners Radio Astra and Radio Mayis for winning the Kutlu Adalı Press Award in recognition of their bicommunal broadcasting efforts on local radio programmes. The Kutlu Adalı Awards were set up in memory of journalist Kutlu Adalı, who was assassinated in front of his home in 1996. They are awarded every year by the Press Labourer’s Union (Basın-Sen) in recognition of media professionals working towards peace in Cyprus.

“This is a really wonderful achievement”, says Dr. Yiannis Laouris, Director of Future Worlds Center, “it is very gratifying to see the rewarding of efforts that were started years ago to utilise media as an instrumental way in providing a vehicle for all Cypriots who share a vision for the future and that of a unified Cyprus”.

Future Worlds Center, Radio Astra, Radio Pyrgos and Radio Mayis have a long history of working together to encourage positive cooperation between Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot journalists with an aim to exchange information about the two main communities in Cyprus. “It was the initiative of Future Worlds Center”, continues Laouris, “in partnership with the Management Centre of the Mediterranean, and the radio stations that launched the first and longest running bi-communal radio show called “Talk of the Island” with hosts Kyriakos Pierides and Hasan Kahvecioğlu”.

The initiative was supported by HasNa Inc., a non-profit NGO based in Washington D.C. whose mission has always been to promote cross-cultural understanding and economic empowerment in culturally divided areas of the world and to encourage individuals and communities in such areas to workhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif together toward advancement and peaceful coexistence.

Over more than 5 years, “Talk of the Island” promoted a culture of peace and displayed balanced news reporting about all island communities about local issues and events not typically covered by the current media. The show also provided a forum for open, island-wide dialogue and direct communication about on-going non-political issues.

For more information on the “Talk of the Island”, please visit: http://www.talkoftheisland.org.

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