We engage in work with young people in different areas. A majority of our services aim at 15-25 age group. Among our completed youth projects are learning through sports, discussions on EU and Turkey’s EU accession among young people and projects on active citizenship with university students.
The key areas demonstrating our involvement with youth work are:
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Intercultural Dialogue |
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Youth-driven projects |
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Learning through sports |
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Employability |
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Social inclusion |
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Networking |
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Leadership |
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Active citizenship, active participation |
In the last three years, our global, intercultural youth programme Connecting Futures has been a major drive for youth-driven, bilateral projects between Turkey and UK. The programme was designed to foster mutual relationships among young people from different backgrounds. We have worked through international partnerships to deliver large-scale and long-term projects, focusing on youth empowerment.
Our youth projects target capacity building through creating partnerships and networks with national and international NGOs, youth NGOs, universities and vocational schools. We emphasise a practical approach to working mutually and act as a facilitator of dialogue among young people.
Some of our current projects:
In March 2007 we have visited United Kingdom with a group consisted of Prime Ministry Youth & Sports General Directorate, Youth and Sport Foundation; Istanbul Bilgi University Youth Studies Unit; GSM-Youth Services Centre and us to observe the youth policies implemented in the UK, to compare the differences in Turkey and to have new ideas.
With these aims we had several meetings with British Council, Department for Education and Skills, National Youth Agency, Youth Bank UK, Silverdale Youth Centre, University of East London and Camden Local Education Authority.
The human development is the created or given facilities that increases the number of choices and decisions for a life that human beings deserve.
Having a longer and healthier life, providing fundamental needs like clean water and food, participating to the social and political events, reaching easier to information and having a more a secure life are the basics of human development.
With the leadership of United Nations Development Program, the Human Development Report which is published in many countries worldwide is prepared on “Youth in Turkey“ this year. The UNDP chose the subject as youth because of it is being the major part of the Turkish population and the key to the national development.
This report, written after many detailed and comprehensive researches, aims to provide suggestions for policies that will be followed.
We have supported the mentioned report by providing expertise from the UK.
One of the most meaningful moments of preparation of the Human Development Report is determination of “best practices” projects that contributed to the changes and evolutions of youth and awarding the project owners. In order to realize this, an award ceremony has been held on 4th of October 2007.
The aim of award ceremony is to define innovator projects that contributed to the development of young people and announce them not only to Turkey but to the whole world.
As part of our agreement with UNDP, we are proud to have hosted this year’s award ceremony and contribute to the announcement of youth NGO’s achievements.
The Minister of State Murat Başesgioğlu, the UN Resident Coordinator in Turkey and UNDP Resident Representative Mahmood A. Ayub and British Council Turkey Director Chris Brown welcomed the guests in the ceremony. The speakers joined the Chair of the British Council Lord Neil Kinnock, UNICEF Turkey Representative Edmond McLoughney, UNDP’s Deputy Resident Representative Ulrika Richardson Golinski, and British Council Ankara Director Jeff Streeter, to present awards to the NGOs demonstrating “best practices” in youth work.
For more detailed information on the award winners please visit www.youthpost.org
Sokak Ligi, which has been implemented since 2004 is a personal development programme which targets disadvantaged children with limited access to sports using football in order to provide a life in harmony with the society. Regular trainings are monitored and evaluated by psychologists and social service experts to demonstrate progress for the children who are part of the larger Sokak Ligi team.
The project which has been conducted in 4 cities until 2006 is now continuing with the central coordination of the Social Responsibility Association. Recently, Sokak Ligi became a part of the “Child Friendly City” programme, within the frame of the protocol signed with the Turkish Ministry of Internal Affairs, General Directorate of Provincial Administration, and is implemented in 15 cities with more than 60 teams 1000 children during the 2007 season. This year’s champion is selected after the Sokak Ligi national tournament held on 21-24 June 2007 in Izmir with the sponsorship of the Izmir Greater City Municipality. Like every year “the most gentlemen” team has been awarded.
For more detailed information please visit www.sokakligi.org
10 youth organizations from 10 countries are conducting various projects in partnership with one youth organization from the UK to generalize the Olympics ideals among young people. We, as the British Council Turkey, are conducting a related project in collaboration with the Community Volunteers Foundation and in partnership with Failsworth Youth Centre.
Our project is slightly different than the projects of Romania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia, Greece, Israel, Azerbaijan, Albania, Bulgaria and Macedonia. We preferred to express the Olympics ideals by using arts. First, we organized some seminars conducted by expert academics and than we reflected what we have learned by short movies, sculptures, paintings, photographs and music.
In 30 August 2007 the project outputs have been exhibited with other countries in Manchester. Now we are organizing a festival to share the ideals with wider audiences in Ankara at the end of November.
For more detailed information and project outputs please visit http://tog.bilkent.edu.tr/olympiarts/
British Council Turkey is starting a new project entitled Youth CAN (Youth Culture in Action Network) jointly with GSM-Youth Services Centre.
For more information please do not hesitate to contact us:
Çağrı Öner
Youth, Sports and Intercultural Dialogue Projects Manager
T. +90 312 455 3643
F. +90 312 455 3636
Alper Kasap
Youth, Sports and Intercultural Dialogue Projects Co-ordinator
T. +90 312 455 3653
F. +90 312 455 3636
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