turkish-greek civic dialogue - AEGEE Europe

members. The overall aim of the project has been to establish dialogue and
encourage partnership projects between young people in Greece and Turkey.
The preparation and designing period of the project took quite some time.
There have been a lot of unforgettable meetings in Ankara, Istanbul, Izmir,
Fethiye, Sakarya as well as Athens, Thessaloniki, Patra, Rodos and Nea Makri
with embassies, academics, youth organisations, artists. After long discussions
about the project content and method as well as contact building activities
a large-scale project has been designed to be carried out in partnership with
various NGOs in Greece and Turkey with the main partner being the Foundation
of Lausanne Treaty Emigrants. The project received a remarkable financial
support from the European Commission Representation to Turkey under the
MEDA- Civil Society Development Programme with €150.000 and supported
by the Greece Embassy to Turkey, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Culture
and Tourism, EOT- Hellenic National Tourism Organisation, Ministry of Foreign
Affairs of Greece NGO Directorate, Municipalities of Sakarya, Fethiye, Sakarya
and Nea Makri, Bilgi University, Middle East Technical University, University
of Athens. And the magic started…with all its dynamic but tough adventures.
We decided to focus on interactive and cultural events encouraging for future
partnerships and using art and creation as a tool.
The project’s launching event was a conference organised by AEGEE-Ankara
& AEGEE-Sakarya between 20-23 March 2003 in Sakarya with the title
‘Rebuilding Communication’. A total of 80 young people from Greece and
Turkey participated in the panels on NGOs and Governments, Media and NGOs
as well as the workshops elaborating on the Role of Young People in Turkish-
Greek Civic Dialogue, The Social Effects of Natural Disasters, the Role of
Education and History Writing, Public Achievement. The conference was
opened by Ismail Cem former minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkey and it was
the first international youth activity that took place in Sakarya. There were 6
youth organisations making their presentations to the whole participants. The
event overlapped with the day the US started a military operation in Iraq and
consequently event participants wrote together a declaration of peace. The
most important outcome of this event was the low-level participation of Greek
youth organisations other then AEGEE members in Greece. There have been a
lot of discussions amongst participants how to attract the attention of Greek
young people to the project.
The hallmark event of the project was a youth and culture festival KAYAFEST
organized in Kayakoy-Levissi in Turkey by AEGEE-Ankara between 27 July – 3
Association des Etats Généraux des Etudiants de L’Europe
August 2003. Kayakoy-Levissi is a very nice village in the south coast of Turkey,
which witnessed compulsory exchange of population in 1923 when Greeks living
in the village had to leave all their houses and settled in Greece in Nea Makri.
The village has rich ecologic and historical value with all the marvelous ancient
rock houses by Greeks; which were not inhabited later on by Turks. The village
been often referred as the ghost village hosted an outstanding festival of young
people. A total of 3000 young people from Greece and Turkey participated
to the concerts, movies and documentaries, exhibitions from Nea Makri,
Karagöz- Shadow Theater, interviews, theater sport, Sirtaki courses, boardpainting,
hiking. The most meaningful part of the Festival was all the cultural
workshops on Documentary Making, Dance Theater, Music, Photography and
Psychology where Greek and Turkish young people working for 6 days together
created magnificent works of art and performed together. The festival hosted
an NGO fair where more than 66 NGOs from Turkey and Greece got to know
each other and established partnerships and danced together. The festival is
still a magic with all the Turkish villagers and them meeting young people from
Greece, grandchildren of Greek people living in the village coming together
with artists and majors. The festival left brilliant exhibitions and paintings of
participants, photo exhibition, its magical stage lights volleyball nets for the
school to the village as well as a lot of hope and bitter sweet memories in the
hearts of everyone.
The third event the symposium on the ‘Compulsory Exchange of Population`
took place in Istanbul between 7-8 November 2003 on its 80 th anniversary
by AEGEE-Ankara and the Foundation of Lausanne Treaty Emigrants. This
symposium was the first international conference that was final held in Turkey
bravely dealing with exchange of population. The symposium was participated
by 250 academics, master students and youth organisations from Greece and
Turkey and hosted very interesting panel discussions on the Political and Socio-
Economic Aspects of the Population Exchange, Population Exchange in
Literature, Preservation of Cultural Heritage in Greece and Turkey, Culture
Before and After Lausanne.
The project’s Final Conference took place between 2-4 April 2004 in Ankara
and organized by AEGEE-Ankara. The final conference aimed both at presenting
the outcomes of the overall project as well as encouraging concrete partnerships
and to talk about future partnership projects. More than 80 participants both
from Greece and Turkey coming from a wide range of diverse youth organisations
participated to highly interactive workshops on
Introduction
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