The development of Baby Buddy Cyprus is being led by the Cyprus University of Technology and Birth Forward with participation from The Berlin Protestant University of Applied Science, Athens University of Applied Science, Cosmoanelixis.

Rigorous research and testing with focus groups produced pleasantly surprising results.

Despite differences in medical provision and cultural practices more than a third of Baby Buddy’s video content resonated with  Greek, Turkish, Arabic and Russian speaking parents in Cyprus.

Furthermore, more than 70% of text content could be adapted or applied directly to support local parents.

"The challenges we face are quite different with a high rate of c-sections and very little awareness of choice when it comes to labour options, for example, but overall becoming parents is a transition with common experiences that transcend ethnicity, age, cultural and language divides and we are so excited to be working with Best Beginnings to make this enriching content available to improve support for Cypriot families, " says Veronika Christodoulides, Birth Forward,  who is co-ordinating the project

A three-day workshop in January this year allowed Best Beginnings to share insights about co-creation, video production and quality-assurance processes. Cyprus will be make some of its own content too and we look forward to seeing what they produce and how it might reflect the differences in experience.

Our European partners were also fascinated to learn more about the collaboration and iterative nature of the training and embedding model that is active in sites across UK.

It wasn't all work, however and vist from our Mediterranean friends, wouldn’t complete without some team building comradery, good food and wine!

Stephanie Kronson, Best Beginnings, introducing a session on Day 1 of the three-day workshop:

The Group Hard at work on Day 3:

Heading for a night out - leaving from our previous home in Elephant and Castle:

Enoying an evening near the Thames, Profession Nicos Middleton for the Cyprus University of Technology (leading the project) and Julia Leinweber from Evangelische Hochshule in Berlin: