SOS Children’s Village
Festival in Kyrenia
By Margaret Sheard…..
Sunday the 6th September dawned sunny and extremely hot for the SOS Children’s Village Festival which was held at the Pia Bella Stadium., thank goodness the subsequent dust cloud which settled over Cyprus on Monday stayed away,
We arrived to find many volunteers in a variety of very colourful costumes, We spied Donald Duck, Minnie
Mouse, Snow White, Spiderman, Batman, The Hulk, The Teletubbies and lots of clowns to name but a few. I would think some of them were extremely hot in their costumes.
The event was sponsored by the Astra Group and there was an enormous stage where there was to be concerts later in the day. There were stalls around the perimeter of the stadium selling fancy goods and food 
and drinks. Of course no children’s event is complete without the bouncy castle type structure and there were 3 huge ones to keep the children amused.
We spoke with Şirin Damdelen who was with her colleagues near the rear entrance and stage and she pointed out the pictures the children had drawn which were available for a donation to the charity. Şirin told us the children from the SOS Children’s Village would be arriving very soon and we wandered around while waiting for them to arrive.
During the time we were at the Festival we met Can Gazi – Producer and Presenter of TV and radio programmes for BRTK, who was with his wife and son and we had a chat with him and Şirin before we all moved on in different directions.
At one point we noticed some of the members of the Turk Riders bike club arrive on a large number of gleaming machines and we were aware that they would be attending to give support to the SOS Children’s Village.
We were interested to find a stall selling small plaques which were handmade and we were told by Műnűse Ağagil that her mother Zehra Ağagil and her grandmother – Műnűse Özmulla breed the silkworms for the cocoons to make these very pretty items and they also produce large pictures in the same style which they have on sale in Buyuk Han, Nicosia (2nd Floor) where they have a shop. The amount of work involved in producing these items must be enormous.
Műnűse Agagil is a London based Fashion Designer born in Nicosia, Cyprus, who graduated from University for the Creative Arts, Epsom in 2014. Specializing in Innovative Fashion for Women’s wear, I am highly interested in Creative Pattern Cutting, 3D Stand Development as well as the whole Design Cycle & Manufacturing.
I was born and raised in an island where the opportunities in education of arts and the values given to arts was very limited. First of all I am so lucky to inherit the genes of my talented grandmother and to grow up watching her inspiring work. Secondly, my endless desire to learn and discover what is happening in the world and my curiosity definitely benefits me.
Műnűse has received the following awards
Radical Designer 2nd Place Award 2014
MUUSE x VOGUE Talents – Young Vision Women’s wear 2014 Finalist
We weren’t able to stay for the whole event but understand there 
were to be many fun games during the afternoon, a tug-o-war, sack race and many other games for everyone’s enjoyment and of course the concerts later in the day.
I am sure the event was a huge success and no doubt we will be hearing from Şirin in the near future with more information but in the meantime feast your eyes on the photographs we took while we were there in the slideshow below.
