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UCLan Cyprus Mediation Month 2022

For yet another year, the School of Law at UCLan Cyprus is delighted to announce the holding of a number of activities in February 2022 as part of the UCLan Cyprus Mediation Month 2022. Aiming to transform local knowledge and culture when it comes to solving disputes, academics, students, professionals and members of the public successfully come together once a year to explore the power of mediation in solving disputes and transforming relationships through a number of different activities.

Mediation Month 2002 saw the School of Law join an International Student Mediator Network initiative, a robust and rewarding international project that will provide meaningful exposure to students on the complexities and nuances of mediation across jurisdictions. The YCM X Warwick Collaboration Project is led by Kudrat Dev, Founder Youth Conflict Management and Mediation Initiative (YCM) and Dr. Jane Bryan, Founder Warwick Mediation Centre. Dr Nevi Agapiou and Professor Stéphanie Laulhé Shaelou act as Cyprus Leads and several UCLan Cyprus students joined the Network as members benefitting from its activities and guidance provided by mentors. The larger goal is to build a global network of young mediators, mediation enthusiasts and youth mediation centres. Outputs include but are not limited to podcast series, recorded mock co-mediations, research and presentation at national and international conferences.

Kicking-off the Mediation Month 2022 activities was a presentation delivered by Dr Nevi Agapiou on ‘Mediation in Cyprus’ at an online Continuing Professional Development (CPD) Day that took place on 2 February 2022 for UK-based mediators organised by Essential Mediation Solutions UK, UCLan Cyprus’ mediation training partner. Following that, the International Civil and Commercial Mediation Professional Training Course was successfully offered for the fourth consecutive year between 11-20 February 2021 (https://www.uclancyprus.ac.cy/internal-civil-and-commercial-mediation-professional-training-course/). Participants, including postgraduate law students of the School of Law, who successfully complete this course, can register as Mediators with the Ministry of Justice and Public Order in The Republic of Cyprus, the Civil Mediation Council in the UK and become certified by the International Mediation Institute (IMI), subject to relevant registration requirements. The professional registration and certification opportunities and the high quality of the training are what truly set this course apart from any other mediation training course offered on the island. Lead trainers are experienced mediators Emma McAndry of Essential Mediation Solutions UK and Dawn Stainer of Lakeland Mediation Solutions UK who worked alongside Dr Nevi Agapiou, Dr Maria Tatsiou, Dr Katerina Kalaitzaki and Professor Stéphanie Laulhé Shaelou of the School of Law, UCLan Cyprus towards providing a stellar training course. This fully interactive course offers a life-changing experience, allowing participants to sharpen their critical and creative thinking skills by being actively engaged in the learning process. It offers participants a meaningful reality-based experience utilising applied learning. Realistic role-play scenarios help the participants to apply newly acquired knowledge and skills as well as to make informed decisions to a wide range of situations. Like the previous year, an EMS Civil and Commercial Mediation Award will be presented to the LLM student with the best overall performance in this course offering them a remote EMS internship and mentorship opportunity as well as a place on one of their Workplace Mediation Conversion Courses.

In between and as part of the aforementioned Course, participants had the opportunity to compete in the 1st Inter-campus UCLan Mediation Competition that took place online on 16 February 2022. Students from all three UCLan campuses – Preston, Cyprus and Mauritius – took part in this Competition either acting as mediators or parties gaining invaluable practice and receiving constructive feedback. You can read more on our students’ experience in a Law Blog post available here: https://lawblog.uclancyprus.ac.cy/

This Course was followed by a Continuing Professional Development (CPD) Online Webinar,  ‘Unlocking Civil and Commercial Mediation in Cyprus’ that was held on 24 February 2022 and was supported by both the Larnaca and Famagusta Bar Associations under Memoranda of Understanding that were respectively entered into with UCLan Cyprus (https://www.uclancyprus.ac.cy/continuing-professional-development-webinar-unlocking-civil-and-commercial-mediation-in-cyprus/). This expert online webinar focused on the UK experience as an example of best practises as presented by Emma McAndry, an experienced Mediator in the UK and our mediation training partner before turning to examine the Cyprus experience as presented by Demetris Kallenos, a practising Advocate in Cyprus. Dr Nevi Agapiou then proceeded to make tangible recommendations  on how the mediation legal and regulatory framework of Cyprus can be improved in bringing UK and Cyprus experts together in an effort to unlock the power of civil and commercial mediation in Cyprus, in swiftly resolving disputes to the benefit of the parties involved. You can watch the webinar that is freely available online here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcZ2Jd2YUho

Following the success of the CPD Webinar held on 24 February 2022, an international CPD training series is being organised by the School of Law UCLan Cyprus in association with Essential Mediation Solutions UK, also a Civil Mediation Council Member Organisation in the UK, to celebrate their long-standing strategic partnership in the field of dispute resolution. The first in a series of three Continuing Professional Development (CPD) short courses on Mediation Essentials is taking place on 24-25 June 2022 on campus. This particular short Course aims to provide participants with information and insights into Mediation Principles (the role of the mediator, the benefits of mediation as compared to litigation, mediation skills and techniques) and starting a mediation (what a mediator does in the initial stages of a mediation with practical application). The course will be very interactive with exercises to practice skills and mediating the start of a mediation, with plenty of opportunities for discussions and to ask questions of the mediator training experts. You can find more information as well as register for the course here: https://www.uclancyprus.ac.cy/international-cpd-series/

Our Mediation Month activities are perfectly supplemented by our year-round social mediation activities. Social mediation is a process for creating and repairing social bonds, leading to peaceful resolutions of conflicts in daily life in which an impartial and independent party seeks, by organising exchanges between persons and institutions, to help them to improve a relationship or to resolve a conflict opposing them. In February 2021, ICLAIM was awarded the European Citizen Prize 2020 by the European Parliament for its 2019-2020 ‘Social Mediation in Practice’ project. The Social Mediation project aims to raise awareness and train individuals of various professional or other backgrounds in the use of social mediation as a conflict resolution tool in a social context (https://www.social-mediation.org/). On 18 January 2022, ICLAIM and UCLan Cyprus presented the Social Mediation project at the 2022 Global Solutions Forum, which took place in Dubai. Our project was selected among others through a competition organised during the GIZ/SDSN Initiatives Lab, which took place in September 2021. The event was hosted by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) of the United Nations, and brought together experts on sustainable development from all around the world, giving them the opportunity to present local initiatives to a global audience in an effort to promote the exchange of ideas and the potential for new global partnerships across areas of expertise and networks. For more information, visit https://www.uclancyprus.ac.cy/iclaim-and-uclan-cyprus-are-joining-the-2022-global-solutions-forum-in-dubai-2/


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