On 8 June 2025, peacebuilding moved out of meeting rooms and onto the sand of Finikoudes Beach in Larnaca. Under the title “Peace By the Sea”, CitizensAct (CiACT) transformed a stretch of public coastline into a temporary laboratory for youth-led dialogue, creative experimentation and shared reflection as part of The Missing Peace multiplier series.
Bringing together 34 people – 27 young participants, 5 youth workers and 2 stakeholder representatives – the event deliberately blurred the boundaries between everyday leisure space and civic learning. From 10:00 registration until the late-afternoon evaluation, activities unfolded in and around the beach: an opening icebreaker helped participants get to know one another across linguistic and community lines, followed by a short presentation of CiACT and an introduction to The Missing Peace project—its aims, objectives and main results in Cyprus and across the partnership.
Lunch became its own kind of artistic intervention. Food was provided by the organisers, but participants were also invited to bring traditional dishes “if they wanted to promote their culture, traditions and customs,” turning the picnic table into an informal exhibition of personal and collective stories. This spirit of playful experimentation continued in the afternoon, when “Peace Building Activities and storytelling” took centre stage. Here, young people and youth workers engaged with activities developed during the project, using narrative, embodied exercises and group work to explore conflict, empathy and reconciliation in a highly visible public setting.
Working bilingually in Greek and English, facilitators treated the beach not only as backdrop but as medium: a shared, open-access space where curiosity from passers-by and the soundscape of the city became part of the intervention. Throughout the day, participants were introduced to the Peace by Piece toolkit, the project’s digital resources, and the broader mapping/tool library, with clear signposting so that methods tested in this experimental format could be taken back into schools, youth groups and community initiatives. The event also offered attendees the opportunity to join the Actors of Peace & Reconciliation network by signing the project’s Memorandum of Understanding, connecting this local artistic intervention to a wider European community of practice.
The day closed with a playful “Pass the Ball” evaluation activity, inviting participants to voice what they were taking away and how they might use the tools in their own environments. In doing so, Peace By the Sea achieved more than dissemination: it implemented the toolkit in a live, public-facing experiment, used food and storytelling as gentle artistic interventions (like the “Dinner of Cultures” in Germany), and opened a pathway for young people and practitioners in Cyprus to continue co-creating spaces for peace well beyond the shoreline of Finikoudes Beach (Larnaca).
“The Missing Peace” project is co-funded by the European Union through the Erasmus+ Program (Pr. Nr.: KA220-YOU-055CD22D).
