Discovering “New Employment Opportunities” in Cyprus

Discovering “New Employment Opportunities” in Cyprus

Travelling to the village Agros in Cyprus, where our training course “New Employment Opportunities” was held was long, especially for me from High Tatras. I met first participant as co-envoy from organization ADEL and Slovakia on the way to Vienna airport. We spent 4 hours waiting for our flight to Larnaca but our excitement was not ruin. We were happy that we leave chilly Slovakia for one week, and also curios, what we experience on the island of Aphrodite birth.

When we arrived, it was still dark, so we could watch from the car during the sunrise how life in Cyprus is waking up. Agros is not a tourist destination, but apparently one of the most interesting towns in Limassol district since its built on hills of the Troodos mountains at an altitude of 1100 m. We enjoyed there nice autumn weather, which reminded me of the September Indian summer in High Tatras. Our training course launched during the joint dinner on arrival day and followed by 6 days full of activities with 20 brightly-minded Europeans, other participants from 9 different countries. After the initial getting-know each other day, during the other days, we have seek solutions on the issue of employment in Europe; trying to create a perfect model of the current employee; or create a project which could help to improve our European life in different directions. We also visited various family factories for processing roses, fruits, meat or mineral water Agros.

We went also for a trip to the capital of Cyprus – Nicosia, visited Museum of Hitory, European Union house with lectures abou EU bodies and rigorous process of selection of employees for them, but also headquarters of the National Youth Organization of Cypriot which produced quality documents for job interviews for job applicants in order to achieve desired success. After a busy program all of us were attracted mainly to cross the border separating two parts of Nicosia and walk around in turkish part.

We spent out of Agros one more day in seaside city Limassol where we felt a little summer atmosphere. We had a tour around the ancient and medieval cultural heritage, we learned more about the program Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs and met volunteers from the programme European Volutary Service that assist residents of Limassol different was. We spent our last hours in the city walking along promenade and beach.

The whole week has passed very quickly. It was about common thinking, and creativity, but also about experiences, mutual understanding and laugh… It was all enhanced by enjoying great Cypriot cuisine and cultural evenings where we had to our homelands. Each of us escaped to Cyprus for a few days from our everyday life and worries. We peek into the issue of employment, but we contributed by our views and solutions as well. We have established new friendships, so it was hard to say goodbye not only to magical Cyprus, but especially to great organizers and participants.

The fact that the idea of a mission of this training course was successful, is evidenced by the award of the Cyprus organizer. NGO Youth Dynamics won 3rd prize in the European Charlemagne Youth Prize in 2014 for project “Employment4U”

Adrianna, participant of the training course “New Employment Opportunities”