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Big cities are famous
for their endless streets.
However Diyarbakir, a large city in South Eastern Turkey,
is famous for its narrow streets.
This city finds its identity
in its 1-metre wide streets.
Sometimes everything seems to disappear when you are walking in the streets.
However, children never seem to disappear from the streets of Diyarbakir.
Children that cannot be properly
raised by their undereducated parents...
These are the children who frequent the streets of Diyarbakir.
Many rural families who settled to Diyarbakir during the 1990s
are still struggling to adapt to the city.
In districts where each family has 4 to 6 children on average,
children spend almost the entire day out in the streets.
They are pretty much raised in the streets, as their mothers
do not have the means to receive proper education about child rearing.
A group of women developed a project
in order to solve this complex problem.
These women who do not expect everything from the government,
go knocking on every door to educate families
about children's and mother's health.
And there is a true Changemaker behind this brave initiative.
Naside Buluttekin
orked as a teacher at public education centers for many years
in Southeastern Turkey. During this time,
she realized how difficult it was to educate
and change the habits of adults.
As she was unable to change much in the present, she decided to change
the future in order to improve the living standards of the population.
- We identified many problems with women.
We asked them to define their problems themselves.
They were mainly troubled by not being able to leave their homes,
to express themselves freely and to socialize.
There were many obstacles on their way such as traditional
and feudal settings and pressures from their husbands.
They did not have any place to leave their 0-6 year old children
in case they wanted to receive education, work
or to leave their homes to socialize. Considering this,
we established two education centers for women and children.
Today, 15 volunteering women from the Ray of Hope Women's Cooperative
visit women in their homes and distribute educative booklets.
Their goal is to inform women about children's and mother's health.
- We also widely offer training on reproductive health.
We have been active for the last 10 years
and I believe that these women express themselves by giving birth
as they are unable to participate in any other type of productive activity.
We have been working with children for 8-9 years.
We try to track how children who come to our center do at school.
Among children who started to attend our center between the ages of 0 to 2,
none of them were involved in any type of crime. This is without exception.
We try to track them as much as we can.
We see great improvements in their grades at school also.
We follow their successes and make comparisons.
Naside Buluttekin
did not wait for the government to deal with each and every problem.
She recognized the importance of education and started a project with the help of her friends.
She did not make recommendations, she offered solutions.
Over the years, she tried to inform thousands of women
about their rights and thousands of children about their future.
Instead of cursing the darkness, she lit a candle in the dark.
In the narrow streets of Diyarbakir, she made a difference
that will influence many generations to come.