Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
They worked in pursuit of a better tomorrow
Through their efforts, they contributed to the lives of others
They empowered others, creating new opportunities and hope.
They spent their days for the sake of this purpose,
without any expectation of honor or praise.
They never relinquished their faith that tomorrow could be better.
And they never gave up.
"Turkey's Changemakers" is looking for people who make a difference in others lives
from all across Turkey.
Sabancý Foundation's "Turkey's Changemakers" begins...
Dear viewers, welcome to a new episode of "Turkey's Changemakers"
where we are seeking people
who made a difference in the lives of others from all across Turkey.
While acknowledging these hardworking people,
we also want to demonstrate
how their work touched the lives
of others with the goal of inspiring you
to become a Changemaker yourself.
We are preparing this program
with the support of the Sabancý Foundation.
Today, we will take you to Diyarbakýr (Southeastern Turkey).
We will go into districts with very high crime rates
and witness how a local organization changed
the lives of thousands of underprivileged people.
Naþide Buluttekin is not just anybody.
Her name is very wellknown in the city
as the Ray of Hope Cooperative that she founded in Diyarbakýr.
This Cooperative runs
20 preschool education centres
in the least privileged districts of Diyarbakýr.
Since 2002, more than 1,000 children
received preschool education from these centres.
Naþide Buluttekin is a very important figure in Diyarbakýr.
Therefore, we went to the deprived districts Diyarbakýr
to observe first-hand her Changemaking efforts.
Here is the Changemaker of this week; Naþide Buluttekin.
Big cities are famous
for their endless streets.
However Diyarbakýr, a large city in South Eastern Turkey,
is famous for its narrow streets.
This city finds its identity
in its 1-metre wide streets.
Diyarbakýr's narrow streets
and their cobblestone pavements keep thousands of secrets.
They are witnesses of young people's dreams, sad stories of unemployed fathers
and the excitement of a young girl who got admitted to university.
Streets are storytellers and keepers of secrets at the same time.
Sometimes everything seems to disappear when you are walking in the streets.
However, children never seem to disappear from the streets of Diyarbakýr.
Children that cannot be properly raised
by their undereducated parents… These are the children
who frequent the streets of Diyarbakýr.
Many rural families who settled to Diyarbakýr 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.
Naþide Buluttekin,
worked 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.
- I worked with adults for many years.
It is so difficult to initiate behavioural change with adults…
I worked very *** it for a very long time
but it is very difficult to change their behaviours.
I'm not saying that it's impossible, you can make them question some things.
But I could not witness an immediate change most of the time.
With kids however, you can see that
they implement what they learned from you immediately.
After taking part in many NGOs as an activist,
Naþide Buluttekin quit her teaching position
in order to carry out a project
devoted to children in Diyarbakýr.
Along with her volunteers,
she started visiting each and every district in Diyarbakýr.
Her goal was to identify women's problems in these districts
and to offer potential solutions to these problems.
- 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.
First, Buluttekin and her friends set up a childcare center
with the support of various NGOs.
While trying to get children to attend the childcare centre
instead of playing in the streets, her main goal was to educate
the children and allow their mothers to participate in social life.
Along with the Ray of Hope Women's Cooperative
that she founded in 2004, they opened their first childcare centers in densely populated districts.
- How do you spend your days here? - Very well.
- What do you do here? - We sing, we study, we play the arbane and then we play games.
- My family wanted me to come here.
I have a great time here, we read books…
- We play the arbane, we play chess.
There are also other games we play here.
We have a great time.
Naþide Buluttekin and her friends started inviting mothers
to the childcare center.
However, as soon as they realized that most mothers cannot come to the center
due to their family structures, they decided to go see mothers themselves.
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.
- Growing hormones are most active between 9 and 11 at night.
Therefore your children should definitely go to bed before 9.
- My child goes to bed a little late.
- Growing hormones are also very active between noon and 1 P.M.
Your child should sleep during that time also.
- Did you receive such an instruction before?
- No, I did not. I did things by myself.
- What did you learn? - I learned a lot of things.
I would be happy if my children would learn how to behave properly.
I will apply what I learned today from now on.
During these visits, mothers are informed about simple
but important child rearing and women's health issues.
If the father is at home during the visit,
he also takes part the training.
- How many children do you have? - I have 10 children.
- Isn't that too much? - Yes it is. But this is very common in this region.
Most pregnancies are unintentional. We can link this to the lack of education in the region.
- Can you look after your children? - No, we have a very hard time trying.
We cannot feed them or educate them as we want to.
- What do you do for living? - I am currently unemployed.
- Did you learn anything from this training?
For instance, mothers were taught how to raise a child properly.
What do you recall from today?
- Parents have an even a more important role than
school teachers in educating children.
Another goal of the Ray of Light Women's Cooperative is
to get women they visited
to volunteer as a "neighbourhood mother".
Fatma Altunç was visited by the Ray of Light Women's Cooperative many years ago.
The training she received changed the way she looked at life
and she decided to join the group of volunteer educators.
And since last year, she has been informing women
about health issues and trying to be their guides on all aspects of life.
- Especially girls who do not use toilet paper
suffer from diseases
such as urinary tract infection and bronchitis.
- What kind of change do you witness in the behaviours of families after the instruction?
- They become more senstitive about health issues
and behavior disorders of their children.
Mothers start approaching their children in a different way.
They take better care of them, spend more time with them.
I tell all mothers to spend at least 1 hour talking and paying attention
to their children. I tell them to accept them as individuals.
I notice that many mothers change their behaviours towards children after the instruction.
The main subject of the instruction offered by the Ray of Hope Women's Cooperative
is reproductive health and child rearing.
This is because most mothers
with more than one child
are not educated on these areas.
With the help of real-life illustrations, women are advised to give birth only if they can take care of that child.
- We feed our children more healthily;
we offer them the care they need. They thought us how to answer
calmly, politely and in an informing way
to questions our children ask us.
Before we used to get angry with them
when they asked us questions, thinking they were being
naughty and noisy. But we were wrong.
Every question they ask influences their personal development,
intelligence and decision-making abilities.
We were not aware of this before.
We learned about these thanks to the training sessions.
We also see many other benefits from the training; our children are raised in a better way.
Our children learned how to say "Thank You" and "Have a nice meal",
they learned table manners, how to use their belongings properly,
how to share with their friends.
We are witnessing many changes in their behaviours.
What matters is not giving birth; what's important is to take care of that child properly.
We should not give birth if we are unable to take care of them.
While the Ray of Hope Women's Cooperative keeps
visiting families, children also receive
complimentary education in childcare centers.
From music to drama; from chess to cinema,they receive education
on a wide range of topics. They spend their days in a safe environment
with the permission of their parents, instead of playing in the streets.
- What are the children most interested in?
- Most of them are very interested in music and drama.
We encourage them to come and play here instead of the streets.
At the same time, we ask them what kind of activities
they want to do as we want them to have fun
We organize our activities according to their needs and requests.
They are very interested in rhythm, drama, folk dance and chess.
But they are especially interested in chess, as they cannot play enough of chess at their schools.
They also love the computer class.
Naþide Buluttekin and her friends
have visited 1600 households.
They tried to inform women about child rearing
and teaching children how to look at life in an optimistic way.
Although maybe they were unable to change much in the present,
they still provided the parents of tomorrow with a vision.
- 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.
Naþide 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 complaining, she lit a candle in the dark.
In the narrow streets of Diyarbakýr,
she made a difference that will influence many generations to come.
Dear viewers, this was the story of Naþide Buluttekin,
a true Changemaker.
She is only one of the thousands of Changemakers among you.
In our program, we try to focus on certain fields of work.
We feature Changemakers who worked in the fields of health,
education, economic development and social development.
In a sense, we try to acknowledge their work
work while providing people who are not aware of
these Changemaking stories with the aim of
inspiring you to become a Changemaker yourself.
If you think that you
or someone you may know is a Changemaker,
I will explain how to nominate them after a very short break.
Dear viewers, "Turkey's Changemakers" is brought to you
with the support of the Sabancý Foundation
and will air on CNN Turk for 32 weeks.
You can all participate in this project.
You can nominate yourself or people you may know as a Changemaker.
We thoroughly assess each and every nomination with our Advisory Board
and decide on which candidates are going to be featured on our program.
Afterwards, we visit these Changemakers in their environments
and share their stories with you.
We seek hardworking and
dedicated Changemakers from all across Turkey in order to share their stories with you.
If you think you or someone you know is a Changemaker, 252 00:18:13,770 --> 00:18:18,760 please fill out the nomination form at www.farkyaratanlar.org
Or you can call us at +90-212-249-23-14 Our friends will direct you to the right place.
Until the next episode of "Turkey's Changemakers", this is Cuneyt Ozdemir,
wishing you a good evening on behalf of the production team.
They worked in pursuit of a better tomorrow
Through their efforts, they contributed to the lives of others
They empowered others, creating new opportunities and hope.
They spent their days for the sake of this purpose,
without any expectation of honor or praise.
They never relinquished their faith that tomorrow could be better.
And they never gave up.
"Turkey's Changemakers" is looking for people who make a difference in others lives
from all across Turkey.