Nicosia ‘has spent €11m on social integration since 2012’

The Nicosia Municipality has spent €11 million on social integration programmes in the last 12 years, Mayor Constantinos Yiorkadjis said on Friday.

Speaking at a ceremony presenting the results to date of three of those projects, he said his municipality has implemented a total of 19 such programmes since he became mayor for the first time in 2012.

“The Nicosia Municipality is one of, if not the only municipality in Cyprus which has invested to such an extent on social integration projects,” he said.

He added, “the Nicosia Municipality invests in people. This is why we have developed a multifaceted social policy and managed to offer essential and quality services and actions, even in a period marked by such major crises.”

One of the three projects presented on Friday was the “Rainbow” programme children’s centre. The programme’s aim “is to facilitate the continuation and supplementation of family education, achieving a healthy and all-round development of children.”

Another is the Information and training centre for employment and entrepreneurship in vulnerable groups.

The municipality said the centre “offers information, training, and support services with the ultimate goal of promoting employment and the development of entrepreneurship.”

The third and final programme discussed was the “Steki” programme, which operates counselling services “as a multi-space of solidarity” for vulnerable members of society, such as the unemployed and victims of human trafficking.

At the same event, First Lady Philippa Karsera Christodoulides inaugurated the “Park of Joy” project.

She said, “the provision of care, creative employment, inclusion, equal treatment, and the improvement of quality of life for all is the duty of all, from whichever position we are in and of the state of the central and local government.”