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Sometimes a photograph tells you about a neighborhood. And sometimes,
it tells you about the drastic change that neighborhood went through.
On the left, there is a house which is about to be destroyed. And on the right,
there is an emptied-out car on the back of a pick-up truck, about to leave.
That picture represents exactly what happened to the Sulukule district of Istanbul.
The district was emptied out, loaded at the back of pick-up trucks, and taken away.
New houses are being built to replace the demolished ones. And some people
are struggling in order for this replacement not to translate into a cultural demolition.
- The neighborhood was being demolished.
This meant that it now was physically impossible for the
musical heritage of the neighborhood to be passed on to the next generation.
Before, community members were interacting in the courtyards
of their houses and out in the streets to pass on their traditions
to the following generations.
Apartment buildings do not provide the same enabling environment.
Funda Oral, along with her volunteering friends who also fought to minimize
the negative effects of Sulukule's architectural transformation on the
district's cultural fabric, established the Sulukule Children's School of Arts
with the support of Istanbul: The European Capital of Culture 2010 Agency.
At this school, they reach children through music;
but also try to teach them valuable life lessons.
They educate children on living
in harmony with their community and on interpersonal relations.
They teach them how to play music, and educate them on life skills.
- There are courses every day of the week at our school.
Mostly courses on music.
We have a couple of performances each year as well.
The continuity of our courses is very important to us.
Each week, 80 children attend our courses.
On average, there are 20 children per course.
There are two levels of courses; the first hour is for beginners,
while the second hour is for advanced students.
We performed at around 6 concerts. We recently performed at local music
clubs such as Babylon, at the University of Istanbul,
But perhaps our performance with the Simon Bolivar Orchestra
from Venezuela was the one that
made us the happiest and made our name heard the most.
Our project, which we are struggling to put together here in Turkey,
is one that already proved itself in Venezuela.
We met the members of the Orchestra,
and performed with them at an event.
In fact, we made our voice heard again with that concert.
This is the mountain with flies Looking down on a city
But the city is far far away As far as in the tales [The Ballad of Ali of Keshan - H. Taner]
Funda Oral's struggle was for that
city not to be as far away as in the tales for the children.
Through the school of arts,
she made a long lasting difference in the lives of hundreds of children.