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The sounds you hear are from a rug workshop in Van.
In spite of the silence in streets of Van,
young girls are weaving rugs in this workshop.
At the same time, they are weaving their future.
Just as painting the city's sky with the natural dye of madder,
they are weaving their rugs for a more beautiful Van,
knot by knot, using their indestructible dreams.
The story of this happy voice rising from Van,
started in the villages of Hakkari.
While working as a draftsperson at the Rural Services, Enver Özkahraman
noticed women's artwork in the villages of Hakkari and Van.
Villager women would collect wool from animals,
and boil these together with natural herbs
to give wool the color of nature.
Following his retirement,
Enver Özkahraman began his efforts for the survival of this cultural heritage.
He was not thinking about making money from rug sales.
Instead, he wanted to contribute to the social development of young girls with the workshop he opened.
- We don't only aim to make money in Hakkari, nor at this workshop.
Unlike other workplaces, we do not require our employees
to work from 9 to 5, with a break at noon.
All of our workers are villagers who migrated to Van.
The social mission of this project is what drove me to implement it.
The fate of this workshop, established with the personal efforts of Enver Özkahraman,
changed entirely when he met Servet Harunoðlu, a businessman from Istanbul.
First, Servet Harunoðlu and Enver Özkahraman established
the Hisar Anatolian Support Society for selling their rugs.
Then, they offered young girls a new life.
- There are at least three to five girls per household in villages.
Due to numerous reasons, these girls could not attend school.
Or they discontinued due to different reasons.
Our main goal here is to convince these girls to return to school.
We even support them to finish secondary education.
Over time, we began looking for potential solutions to this problem.
We received support from numerous volunteering university students.
Until today, almost all of the girls who came here
finished elementary school through distance learning.
Among these girls, some have never seen the sea or a movie,
and some do not even know what the inside of a movie theatre looks like.
In order to sell our rugs, we attended events in Istanbul, in Ýzmir,
in Mersin and in Ankara.
For our trips, we would always take
3 to 5 of our girls with us.
They boarded a plane for the first time, and saw Ýzmir and Mersin for the first time.
This was possible thanks to the support of Mr. Harunoðlu.
If all goes well, we will attend a fair in the United States next summer
with two of our girls to promote our culture,
and also to make it possible for our girls to visit the United States.
Prior to the 2011 earthquake in Van, 125 young girls were working
in 6 workshops established by Enver Özkahraman.
Due to the earthquake, 4 of these workshops were damaged and had to be closed.
Today, 50 girls working in the 2 remaining workshops
weave their hopes into rug patterns.
Many years ago, Enver Özkahraman discovered a natural dye (madder)
and integrated nature into daily life.
He worked to empower young girls in the social sphere.
Following the earthquake, the sun rose from the east again thanks to his efforts.