Paralympian Gold Medallist Karolina Pelendritou and footballer Coskun Ulusoy will kick-off a four-day seminar at the Cyprus Community Media Centre (CCMC) in Nicosia’s Buffer Zone. The event, which starts on Wednesday 25 January, is organised in partnership with the Council of Europe (CoE) and the Community Media Forum Europe (CMFE).

The aim of the programme is to promote the inclusion of the principles of non-discrimination and diversity as an ongoing angle of media coverage. Organised within the framework of the joint CoE / European Union MARS - Media Against Racism in Sport - programme, this encounter will focus on sport related issues.

The issue of racism in sport has made headlines across Europe in recent months following incidents involving high-profile football players in England’s Barclays Premier League. “The cases of Luis Suarez and John Terry have highlighted the importance of understanding the nature and prevalence of racism in sport”, said Michalis Simopoulos, local coordinator of the encounter. “By encouraging professional collaboration with media actors and the exchange of media practices, CCMC hopes to enhance a diversity of perspectives and topics dealt with by the media”.

The MARS Programme is a follow-up action to the 2008 – 2010 CoE “Speak out Against Discrimination” campaign, CMFE were already involved in. “We believe that an inclusive information environment is crucial for achieving effective social cohesion and participation in democratic life”, said Reynald Blion, MARS programme manager. “Working with media partners at the European and national levels is a strategy that we believe can influence public opinion vis-à-vis diversity and intercultural issues”.

CMFE is one of the partner organisations for MARS, working close together with the Council of Europe or partner like MediaAnimation, IFJ/EJF, VIDC, FARE and other. The programme brings representatives  from Community Media, Minority Media and Mainstream Media together on a very pratical level. CMFE is responsible for the organization of several national and one european gathering and inviting editors and journalists to come together and produce media reports through cross-production with non discrimination and diversity as an angle of media coverage. The first Encounter focussing on Cross Production was held in Vienna in September 2011, organized together with the austrian CMFE member and federation for free radios VFRÖ. The second encounter in Nicosia from 25 to 28th of januar 2012 is now organized with the cypriot CMFE Member Cyprus Community Media Center CCMC. Later this year there will be several other national Encounter on Cross Production in Dublin in April 2012, in Berlin in July 2012 and in autumn in Budapest. The 1st European Media Encounter on Media Cross-Production will be in Portugal in Oktober 2012. All journalists, editors and media activists are invited to join these meetings. Additional everybody can apply for "European Media Work Exchanges", where  media professionals from Community, Minority or Mainstream Media have the opportunity to host a media colleague/counterpart and be hosted themselves by a media related organisation in return.

Beside Cross Production, there are several other actvities in the field of Training & Literacy and Ethics. For further information on the whole MARS programme, please visit the Council of Europe page.

For more information on the part of the MARS Programme, CMFE is responsible for, please visit: http://www.cmfe.eu/mars and get in contact with CMFE MARS Coordinator  This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .