Why Embargoed! Needs You

THIS COMING year – 2014 - will be ten years since Embargoed! was formed by well-known passionate activists such as Ipek Ozerim, Bulent Osman, Zeki Mehmed and many others. Ten years on, we at Embargoed! are just as passionate about our campaigns and we have certainly left our mark on the political landscape. Influencers around the world are aware of the plight of Turkish Cypriots and the fact that we are unable to enjoy simple basic rights linked to trade, sport, direct flights, communications and education, to name a few.

Next year will also see the scandalous scenario of 50 years since the embargoes were enforced against our people. This is one anniversary which Turkish Cypriots will not be celebrating.

While there has been some encouraging movement in terms of football, even here we are a long way from seeing our Turkish Cypriot footballers have the embargoes against them removed.

Next year, Embargoed! will be running a spectacular campaign designed around raising awareness of the 50th anniversary and to do this we will be going into creative overdrive. We will be inviting students from anywhere around the world to give us their creative take on what the embargoes mean to them. This could be based on an actual experience or something hypothetical. It could be a short film, a piece of photography, a poem, a picture or any other creative piece of work – the only proviso is that it is linked to the embargoes that people have faced in the last 50 years.

There will be total prize money on offer of up to £5,000 and we are sure that with this incentive there will be interest from far and wide making this a truly global campaign. The campaign is also open to being sponsored and we would welcome enquiries of this nature. There will be excellent campaign coverage in the media throughout the year culminating in an awards ceremony for those best creative pieces.

But all this planning and campaigning will cost and we can inform readers of AVRUPA that our expected campaign costs will be at least £15,000. However while we are starting from a position of almost zero, we already have a website in the process of being set up especially for this campaign. We know times are difficult and with the festive season ahead of us, giving any spare money to something like this will be tough. But we do depend on the generosity of our supporters and members. It only costs £10 to join Embargoed! and you can join or rejoin online by clicking here. People spend a lot more on their morning cappuccinos and lattes each working week so we do not think this is a lot to ask for, in support of something which will hopefully mean a lot to readers.

You can also be assured that Embargoed! are one of the few, if not the only UK-based Turkish Cypriot Non-Governmental Organisation which is listed at Companies House. This means all of our accounts are readily available to see. Every penny we receive goes towards our campaigns so we would like to thank you in advance for reading this and your anticipated support.

For any enquiries please email Suzanne Nuri at [email protected]