Shemaine Bushnell Kyriakides
I’ll be honest, when I first heard about this, I didn’t think many kids in Cyprus would even know who Pippi Longstocking or the Moomins were.
I certainly didn’t grow up here, and in my head these were very “Northern European childhood” characters. Pippi, yes, I knew her from school reading lists growing up elsewhere. The wild red braids, the independence, the “I’ll do it my way” attitude. But the Moomins? I only discovered them much later in life.
But underneath all the official titles, the idea was actually very simple: get children to think about kindness, difference, and what it means to be yourself.
So two weeks ago, when I was invited to an award ceremony for local schoolchildren in Cyprus, built around these two characters during this, their 80th year anniversary, I was genuinely curious. Would Cypriot kids connect with this at all?
Turns out...very much yes.
The competition, called “The Inspiring Journey of Moomins and Pippi,” brought together primary school children from across Cyprus in a first-of-its-kind initiative organized by the Ministry of Education together with the Embassies of Sweden and Finland and IBBY-Cyprus. It also forms part of Cyprus’ Presidency of the Council of the EU, bringing European values into classrooms, into children’s everyday thinking, and even into family conversations at home.
But underneath all the official titles, the idea was actually very simple: get children to think about kindness, difference, and what it means to be yourself.
And somehow, two very Nordic story worlds ended up working just fine in Cypriot classrooms.
The themes the kids worked on were things like self-confidence, acceptance, kindness, respect for others, and even respect for nature. Big ideas, but when you see them through children’s drawings and stories, they suddenly don’t feel abstract at all.
In total, 37 students from 12 primary schools across Cyprus were awarded. Schools from Nicosia, Limassol district villages, and smaller communities all took part: Agrokipia, Akaki, Kissonerga, Trimiklini, Kato Pyrgos Tillirias, Aglantzia, Lakatamia, and others.
The ceremony took place at the Swedish Ambassador’s residence in Nicosia. And like these things often go, it started off slightly formal… and then quickly turned into something much warmer once the children were awarded their certificates.
Parents were trying to film everything, kids were holding their artwork like it might disappear if they let go, and there was that familiar mix of excitement and nerves you only really get at school events where something “important” is happening.
One of the nicest touches was the prize. Instead of trophies that end up in a drawer, each winning school received a reading corner in the shape of a tent provided by IKEA—a small, cosy space that can be set up right inside the classroom.
Basically: a little hideout for kids to read during school break. And if you’ve ever been in a Cypriot classroom at break time, you’ll know exactly why that might just be one of the best prizes going.
I asked my friend Thomas Peccini at the Ministry of Education why this kind of project matters, especially when schools already have so much on their plate.
His answer was simple: it’s about giving children space to imagine and to see values like kindness and acceptance not as theory but as something lived.
And you could feel that idea throughout the whole event. It wasn’t really about who “won” in the traditional sense. It was more about what the kids took from it, that being different is okay, that kindness matters, and that stories can say things adults sometimes struggle to.
It was in that spirit that the Swedish ambassador to Cyprus, Martin Hagström, reflected on the legacy behind Pippi Longstocking, created by Swedish author Astrid Lindgren: “Her strength is that she is not lecturing us. When you read the stories, it is about humanity, about children’s right to be children, and to have their own personality, which was quite revolutionary when she wrote the books.”
Building on the Swedish Ambassador’s reflection on Astrid Lindgren’s legacy and the idea of children’s freedom, the Finnish Ambassador to Cyprus, Päivi Peltokoski, added a more hands-on perspective from the classroom side, stressing what the project actually achieves in practice: “The competition promotes cooperation, compassion, and empathy...very important values for us, and it gives students and teachers the opportunity to work together, expand their creativity and critical thinking, and learn through a very specific theme in a very engaging way.”
Education Minister Athena Michaelidou also chimed in, “I think the best part was the enthusiasm. Everybody was on board; everybody wanted to make it a success. And from what we heard from schools across Cyprus, the children were very interested, they really wanted to participate.”
By the end of it, I found myself thinking again about my first reaction, that this wouldn’t really land here.
But watching Cypriot kids draw, write, and talk about Pippi and the Moomins like they’ve always known them, you realize something quite simple: kids don’t really care where a story comes from. If it speaks to them, it works.
And maybe that’s the whole point.
