Kleovoulos
My name is Kleovoulos Stylianou.
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I'm 29 years old and I consider myself as a very active person trying for the best of the world and of my community. That's the reason I started volunteering with YEU and that's how I find out about the SDGs.
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I believe that nowadays the SDGs need to receive more attention, and the best way to draw people's attention is through public interventions, even in social media. These actions will help as people will receive at least an indirect impact about the SDGs. Additionally, workshops might be useful for those who already have some knowledge about SDGs and what to explore them more in depth.
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I think that in Cyprus, the goal that needs more attention is number 16 "Peace, justice and strong institutions". That's obviously because of the issue with the invasion and occupation. I feel that as Greek Cypriots, we don't even have an understanding of our own society, and therefore it is even harder for us to understand the other half of the island, that is the Turkish Cyprus. At the same time, there are other issues that lack in visibility and should require more attention from the public and the policymakers. One of this is the environment. Nowadays in the news, especially in TV, we hear a lot about Covid-19, of course, or about Turkey and the Cypriot issue, for example about the new elections and so on, and the focus is on the political perspective. However, there's no attention and awareness about climate change or in general about the environment. To give you an example, as far as I know, Cyprus has a red light, that means a very low score, in “Life below water” goal which is something very surprising because Cyprus is famous for having some of the best beaches in Europe, and that's promoted for attracting tourists, but at the same time, if the score is so low it means that even if the beach is ok, the sea itself is very polluted.
I think media have a lot of power to improve things. They only cover news that have a more direct impact on people, as I said before the pandemic, the Cypriot issue etc., but they don't focus on things that don't have an immediate impact, as in the case with environmental issues which do not have an immediate impact on people’s life, for example if I don't recycle, the world will not get destroyed tomorrow, but it will have an impact in the future. I think this is the main reason why the media don't talk enough about environmental problems. Probably, if media started covering such topics, people will be more aware and then they will change their habits. Moreover, TV is different from social media as: you watch it everyday in your house, there's a Cypriot presenter, it involves you more, so that's why I think it will have a greater impact on the people than an instagram account for example. I don't want to underestimate social media, I opened an instagram account myself, but I think that Cypriot in TV channels can influence more. Another reason I believe that, it is because in TV you do not have to search for information, they got the information directly, while on social media it's a kind of different story, you have to look for it. So i believe the most important means to improve climate responsibility in Cyprus is through our media and of course, education in schools. When I was younger we weren't aware about climate changes, but I think now it's getting more and more into school and this is positive. For sure the kids now are more aware then I was, when I was in their age.
As I was saying, a few months ago I opened an instagram account because I felt the need to tell that, as humans, we shouldn't use our power to take advantge of others and I wanted to show that when we do this, when we abuse of our power, we are not sustainable. We created an unsustainable system that the world can no longer withstand.
The page is called “you are not superior” and what I want to convey is that, as humans, we are not superior to others, in particular people that are in a minority position like migrants, people with different sexual orientations, women, people with disabilities and so on, but we also are not superior to animals. We cannot use them as our “property” because we don't have, as humans, more rights than animals and the same goes for the environment in general, we are not even superior to trees, for example, because, simply put, without trees we will not have oxygen to breathe. So I felt the need to communicate this to people, to show them this other perspective or mentality which is a principle that I'm trying to follow as a person. In particular, I show facts about gender equality, discrimination and so on, but also more positive things like improvements over the last years or some good advice.