Free School, Nicósia

Free School was born out of a necessity to build a living example of solidarity-based co-existence with socially, economically, and culturally excluded families residing in Arabahmet neighborhood of Nicosia old town. The school embraced a learning structure that could generate alternative gateways out of unjust and destructive hierarchies, between migrant and non-migrant, between genders, between child and adult, between student and teacher, between economic classes etc.  Its primary focus has been bringing education to the grassroots as a task that should be shared collectively from families and neighbors to friends and professionals of any kind. In terms of content, we prioritized activities that sparked creative and critical thinking as an alternative to competitive, uniforming institutional curriculum. In that light, we initially organized a space where we, as adults, could learn from the limitless curiosity of children while welcoming people with diverse backgrounds to share their experience, expertise, and perspective with our neighborhood. This space consisted of an atelier and a garden maintained collectively. In its organic course the Free School has moved away from being an organized space to a tightly-knit neighborhood network with sporadic returns to space-specific activities. This network is currently functioning mostly away from the public eye.

More information from the space-specific period can be found on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/ozgurokul.arabahmet