#ahdr

As many of you know, one of the many exciting interactive tools that will be hosted by Mahallae is "Nicosia is Calling," a game for students aged 8-14. The game combines history and learning about the city of Nicosia, its rich cultural heritage and its multicultural past, whilst imagining the city in the future as a unified whole. This week, we talk to Daphne and Shirin from the Association for Historical Dialogue and Research (AHDR) team about developing the game. 

Mahallae Team: How did you come up with the idea to develop Nicosia is Calling?

Daphne and Shirin: Over its 10 year existence, the AHDR has worked hard in producing new approaches to the learning and teaching of history.  One of their major achievements was the production of supplementary educational materials for educators and young people.

“Nicosia is Calling” was the first education material to be produced by the AHDR and includes a series of booklets addressing students aged 11-12 and 14-16. The booklets enable students to explore Walled Nicosia through various activities, and relate to the following areas of the walled city of Nicosia:

Arabahmet Neighbourhood

Chrysaliniotissa Neighbourhood

Kyrenia Gate

Paphos Gate

And then one day whilst flicking the pages of the Nicosia is Calling booklets, we realized more could be done…. something new, something that makes the shift from traditional learning and academia. 

It was then that we thought of turning these booklets into an on-line game.

In this way the work already produced could be expanded and developed in innovative ways in order to engage more people.  Moreover, the game would allow us to extend our work and include all quarters of Nicosia in order to truly explore the fascinating multicultural past of the city, whilst presenting the city as a whole.

  Mahallae Team: So what do you aim to achieve with the game?

Daphne and Shirin: Being aware that we live in a society in Cyprus where people are still afraid to cross to the “other” side, where prejudices and hatred prevail and children especially are exposed to biased views of the past, was one of the major incentives to create an interactive educational game on Nicosia. 

We thus wanted to develop an educational platform that would provide young people with a fun way and an interactive tool in which they would learn about the past and present of the old city of Nicosia, its geography, its unique cultural heritage… - and then share it with friends, and challenge them to play as well! 

What’s more, all this could be done without having to rely on their teachers or schools, or even needing to leave their computer!  And how brilliant to think that a child in Morphou and child in Paphos could simultaneously understand the truly multicultural past of the city and learn about a common history of Cyprus without limitations.

  * The Nicosia is Calling game is composed of five levels. Above screenshots show a few.

Mahallae Team: And do you have any plans for future development?

Daphne and Shirin: We certainly do, this was just the beginning! We want to further develop the Nicosia is calling game, make it richer in information and options, and even more interactive and fun, and probably also create a Facebook app.  And we also plan to produce a more sophisticated game aimed at young people and adults, where players will learn more about the city’s life and the city’s secrets! In generally, we want to keep on passing onto people the message, that Nicosia is a shared, multi-cultural city with an amazing past, present, and hopefully future!

We are also keen to use this incredible experience and explore the possibilities of knowledge sharing in which similar interactive tools could be developed in other cities in the world!