With its Projects Setting an Example, BEDES is Continuing to Contribute to the Education of Beykoz Residents At Full Speed!
Setting an example in Turkey, and improving the quality of education in Beykoz district, supporting kids who otherwise can barely afford to go to school, BEDES (Beykoz Support for Education Foundation) is continuing its works in full speed. Gülay Demirel, one of the founders of the foundation, shared BEDES's activities with us:
Turcommunique: Before we begin, could we get to know Gülay DEMIREL better?
Gülay DEMIREL: For a long time I have worked with NGOs abroad. The biggest problem there was the Turks who had gone abroad to work before they even had ever left their villages for big cities, or gone to school, not being able to speak for their rights and learn a different language. They were going to work in the morning, and coming back to their homes at night. Considering these problems, we have established our first kindergarten in Berlin, called the "Yuvam Ev" Foundation.
I have worked in various sections of the foundation for 16 years. When I came back to Turkey, I saw a big change in my country, people were not trusting each other any more. Social and cultural gaps were huge, and there was no equality in education. Seeing all these, me and my friends who had the same goals as I did, decided to found BEDES. We started with education scholarships, tried to reach the parents. We organized various activities, seminars, and improved physical conditions of schools.
Turcommunique: Why Beykoz?
Gülay DEMİREL:We are from Beykoz, and everyone should protect where they are living in. Since we do live in Beykoz, we can see closely, and I create a difference and produce solution by telling other people who live here, "Look, there are problems like this and that here." However, I doubt I could have been this efficient for Beykoz had I lived in Kadıkoy. Everyone should sweep in front of their own doors. Beykoz is not a small district. The population is almost 250 thousand. When they started opening factories in Beykoz, they called people from villages to come and work there. People started living in the forest areas. Whoever came brought 10 more along, and there we had an irregular urbanization. People could maintain their lives to a limited extend. It wasn't until they closed down factories like the leather shoes and tekel that people suffered from unemployment, and the quality of life declined more. In the mean time, big apartment complexes like Acarkent, Beykoz Mansions were being built. A bridge was necessary between people with high level of income and low level of income. Living behind walls, closing down our ears and eyes would not eliminate the problems. So in 2005, being a bridge between these two sectors is exactly what BEDES did.
Turcommunique: Does BEDES operate only with a team of approximately 9 people, or do the volunteers work with you as well, an what is your source of income?
Gülay DEMİREL: We conduct our work on voluntary basis. Because nobody has time to waste. We believe everybody should put their hands under the rock, to contribute to the society, for a contemporary, bright Turkey. That is why, even though it's a small group of people, we support them in the name of education. We have two types of income. First of all, we are providing students with scholarships. As I was asking my friends, "Hey, there is a student, would you consider providing scholarships?" this started to grow, and it reached to 165 students. We give 50 TL to elementary school students, 75 TL to junior high and high school students, 100 TL to university students as scholarships. In order to put it to a system, we ask people to give automatic payment orders, so that our students won't get late payments. What makes us different from other foundations is that if you are giving 100 TL of scholarship, this includes the costs of the foundation as well. But we put this amount fully in our students' accounts.
Turcommunique: Do you have government subsidies?
Gülay DEMİREL: After the reassuring practices we have done, Beykoz Governorship appreciated us and said they wanted to give scholarships to the poor kids as well. Other than this, we have students who are receiving scholarships from the Municipality. There is destitute fund, as you know. There are scholarships within that as well. However our people don't know how to apply for these. So we actually apply on behalf of them.
Turcommunique: Could you tell us about your activities?
Gülay DEMİREL:We have done various works in order to improve the physical conditions of the schools. We targeted having thousand people who can give 20 TL a month. With the income we received from this campaign called My School, we opened health centers for village schools, public education centers, and improved the physical conditions of schools. Beykoz is one of the two counties of Istanbul with a village. In one classroom there are double classes from the 1st to the 3rd, and in the other classroom there are double classes from 3rd to 5th. This is because parents do not want to send their kids far away. However, the number of students is not enough to fill in a classroom. The state is fine with it as long as students study. Otherwise the parents are not going to send the students. You find out about this when you are in it. When you think about it, you may say is there really village schools in Istanbul? But the situation is not like that. We really have schools in Istanbul conditions of which are similar to a village school.
Other than these we are opening science laboratories. Kindergartens are very important in core education. In the 95% of the schools in Europe there are kindergarten classes. Here that ratio is as low as 12%. In order to help increase this ratio, we are opening up kindergartens. We have another kindergarten opening in May 27. Also, we are organizing training seminars both for teachers and parents. In the volunteer services that we receive at the PREB psychological rehabilitation center, we reveal domestic incest relationships, violence, and the problems our students face in their education. After detecting the problem, we offer professional services to our students thanks to our volunteer pedagogues, psychologists, and psychiatrists who volunteered at this same rehabilitation center.
We offer opportunities to 150 students with limited resources to spend their summers as efficient and conscious individuals. Our goal here is to create awareness in kids on several different topics, offer opportunities to the talented ones, and establish the notion of modernity.
Some of the summer school activities that we will be organizing for the third time are:
Teaching how to use knives and forks,
Dancing classes at Burçin Orhon dance school,
Theatre classes by theatre actors,
Swimming classes at the Beykoz Municipality's swimming pool,
Getting to know the historical and cultural places in Istanbul (Miniaturk, Topkapı Palace, Toy Museum, etc.)
Our recently finished project "Tears of Water" was conducted in collaboration with Istanbul University and Koç University.
The goal was to save water and preserve water resources. We initially started off with a presentation, and later on organized a debate, poster and painting contests. We announced all participating students the water examiners, and gave them various rewards. With our occupational courses, we provide siblings of our scholarship students who do not study, to get a skill and find employment.
Turcommunique: This was a very pleasant interview. Thank you for your time. We hope what you have started in Beykoz will soon propagate in other districts as well.
