Contracting Authority

Small Projects Programme in Turkey:

Strengthening Civil Society Dialogue

Grant Application Form

Europaid/121916/C/G/TR

Budget line(s) 22.02.06

.         the action

1.         Description 

1.1     Title                        Aegean Youth Interaction Project

1.2     Location(s)            Istanbul – Turkey and Athens – Greece

1.3     Summary

Maximum 10 lines (include information on (a) the aim of the action, (b) the target group(s) and (c) the main activities). Where applicable, clearly indicate the sector, theme, or geographical area specified in the call for proposals to which the proposed action would apply.

Project aims to increase ‘youth’s awareness of the EU and contribution to local administration bodies in formation of youth policies, in order for youth to take initiatives in the process of European Union enlargement. Project’s target group is 100 teenagers between ages 16-18, from whom 50 live in Athens and 50 live in Beyoglu district in Istanbul and local administrations. Project’s activities are the promotion of the project via related institutions, determination of the participants; creation of the web site; providing education on the subject of the EU. At the end of the project, a 2-day conference and 1-day youth congress will be held in the Kefken Summer Camp, and communication papers created by the outcomes of the conference are going to be presented. Outputs of the project, a booklet and a CD will be published. CD and Booklet will be sent and opened for share to related institutions like local administrations, universities, European Delegation of Turkey, EU Council, and European Youth Forum.

1.5     Objectives
 

One of the most important problems of the process of joining in and integration with the European Union is youth’s insufficient knowledge and awareness on the issues like EU institutions and organizations, youth programs, European Citizenship, and recent developments about the EU.  The reason for this is the lack of independent platforms where these subjects can be debated and presented. On the other hand, the youth does not have enough knowledge about sources or reaching those sources of knowledge. Therefore, knowledge and documents related to EU do not spread sufficiently, and do not reach wide sections among teenagers.

Turkey’s cooperation with one of the EU members is in the first place going to be an important opportunity for sharing experience and speeding up of EU integration. Conducting this project with Greece will not only provide an environment to remove stereotypes between two countries, which are quiet close culturally and geographically, but also make the project more easy to proceed.   

This project will upgrade youth’s level of knowledge and consciousness about the subjects of European Union, which youth have insufficient information, and will also create an Istanbul and Athens dimensioned web platform that is going to be a bridge of knowledge between Greece and Turkey.  Via this web platform, besides the communication created between Greek and Turkish youth, concurrent lectures will be given to prepare youth for the conference and by doing this, debates held in the web platform will be enriched.  Subjects of the lectures are set as European Union institutions and organizations, European Union integration, European Union Youth Programs, and European Citizenship.  

After the debates held in web forums during these 5 months and lectures given in both countries a 2-day conference will be held and a 1-day youth assembly will meet in the Kefken Summer camp, where is owned by Beyoglu Municipality. In the assembly, youth will express their ideas on the subjects debated in the web for 5 months and they will exchange their opinions.  In the conference 20 speakers each from Turkey and Greece are going to participate for stating their ideas on the topics. These representatives are going to be chosen among the people, who are academicians, state servants, or officials of the EU. Representatives are going to put forward their ideas in 4 four sessions about public or private youth policies of Turkey and Greece, youth studies that might be conducted mutually by both parties, and the reforms that can be made for the youth policies of Turkey in the process of negotiations with EU. At the end of the conference each speaker shall release one bulletin in Turkish, Greek, and English. Moreover, young people chosen among the youth are going to release their own communication paper to all participants on the subjects debated in the congress, and those papers are going to be released in the form of booklets as hardcopy and CDs as digital copy at the end of the conference too. Consequently, throughout the time of the project and at the end of the process, local administrations are going to be aware of youth’s and experts’ ideas and they can create youth programs under the framework of these ideas with youth.  

Consequently, under the scope of the project youth’s consciousness level will raise, two countries’ young population is going to communicate with each other on a virtual platform via web site and forum, which is to be built later.  This sharing of knowledge occurred on a virtual platform is going to reflect on the real world by youth assembly held in Kefken and 2-days conference.  Conference will also enhance the participation of civil society organizations and a bridge of knowledge between local administrations and civil society organizations, between youth and experts is going to be built like a bridge of knowledge built among youth. 

1.6     Justification

(a)    relevance of the action to the objectives of the programme

Essentially, the project aims at raising the consciousness of Turkish youth on the various aspects of the European integration, following the first objective of the program. For this aim, project lectures on the relevant topics will be given and 100 students from Turkey and Greece will be encouraged to discuss freely and deliberately the topics on the European Union and the youth policies in both countries. Also Turkey and Greece will have the chance to share their past experiences in youth policies and improve their relations. This will be a value adding action in Turkey’s accession process to the European Union and local administrations in Turkey, together with relevant NGOs, will have the chance to examine the youth policies of the European Union. Not only the administrative institutions, but also individuals and the educational institutions will have the opportunity to be more informed about the European Union and related topics to the Union. Thus, as a result inevitably the project will increase the visibility of the European Union in Turkey.  

(b)    relevance of the action to the priorities of the programme

The project primarily aims at paving the way for cooperation among NGOs, local administrations and the young populations of Greece and Turkey. In this regard, the most important youth NGOs of these two countries, Youth for Habitat – Turkey and National Council for Hellenic Youth Organizations - ESYN (from now on it will be called as ESYN in the text) will be the main contractors for the project. The enhancement of relations between these two NGOs will be an important step forward for the prospective cooperation between more NGOs in Turkey and Greece. Cooperation links between Turkey and Greece will also be strengthened by Athens and Beyoglu Municipality’s support to the project. In the previous years, these two local administrations had many joint projects and with this last project they will serve the aim of exchanging ideas and experiences about the youth policies. In addition to these new windows of opportunities for partnership, there will also be vast development in the dialogue between the parties of the project.  In the first place, the high schools in Turkey and the high schools in Greece cooperate with the NGOs, and the NGOs will give lectures, which will increase consciousness of the young population about the EU and its youth policies. Since Turkey is a candidate of the Union, Turkish educational institutions and its young population will benefit from this cooperation, and this will inevitably promote a better motivation and more active involvement for the integration of Turkey to the EU. In the second place, during and after the conference, local administrations are going to be incorporated into the project, and there will be an alliance of NGOs, local administrations and young population about the project’s aim.  In the last place, this project will provide a suitable environment for reducing the prejudices between the two countries and two populations, which have similar cultures, geography, and similar heritage. 

(c)     identification of perceived needs and constraints in the target countries

In Turkey, where there will be significant reforms in every area during the EU negotiations, it is expected to experience the localization of certain policies related to various groups.  Local agencies will take over most of the responsibility of establishment and implementation of these policies. In this respect, youth policies in Turkey will be increasingly organised by local municipalities and NGOs. However, until today there hasn’t been enough support from youth and experts, to encourage the local authorities to take more action in localizing the process of shaping youth policies. In order to establish this support intensive work needs to be accomplished by the local municipalities which have close relations with the local population. Since the young population is the subject of youth policies, local administrations have to encourage them to actively participate, inspire, vary their ideas, and deepen their understanding of youth policies.  At the same time, the experts, who are the primary sources of knowledge on the topic, will assist the local administrations, NGOs, and enrich their vision on youth policies and the needs of the young population.  Considering the fact that there hasn’t been substantial dialogue between Turkey and Greece over the youth policies, this project will also integrate the ideas of local administrations, experts, and young population of Greece in order to prepare a ground for exchanging experience. 

(d)    list of target groups and estimated number of direct and indirect beneficiaries

Target groups are comprised of 100 students from Turkey and Greece, 42 youth NGOs in Athens, which the ESYN has direct contact with (e.g. European Parliament of Young persons Greece, E.S.E.S.V.I. Association of Greek Students of Northerners of Continent, Soma Hellinikou Odigismou etc.), 52 Youth NGOs in Beyoglu which the Youth for Habitat and Beyoglu Municipality has direct contact with (e.g. AEGEE, Bilgi Children’s Club, AISEC, TOG, Beyoglu Youth Council etc.) and officials responsible for youth policies in local municipalities. Before the conference, all NGOs and all high schools in Beyoglu district in Istanbul and Athens will be informed about the project and conference through meetings. During the conference, NGOs, experts, representatives from local administrations, and the Youth Assembly will have the opportunity to share ideas.  Thus, direct beneficiaries of the project are the 100 participant students, NGOs participating in the conference and giving lectures during the first phase of the project, the local administrations, which actively involved in the project, and experts, who will present their proposals and suggestions on the topic.  During the first phase, and after the conference, all the written materials, which are the outcomes of the project, could be reached by everyone who wants to visit the web site.  Also, after the conference the Youth Assembly declaration and the public releases of the speakers of the conference will be published in the digital form with CDs and also in the format of hardcopy with the booklet. The written materials in these outputs will be translated from English to Turkish and Greek. This will enable everyone in both countries to read and understand the ideas shared all through the project. The CDs and the booklets will be distributed to all the participating schools, and the schools, which demanded them. These schools will give the chance to all students to reach these publications by storing them in their libraries.  The indirect beneficiaries are all schools, all NGOs, and everyone, who is visiting the web site. Relative NGOs will put link buttons to the website of the project. The digital platform will enlarge the number of indirect beneficiaries in vast amouts.  Since, public releases of the conference will be distributed to NGOs, schools and local municipalities in Istanbul After the conference, these institutions will automatically benefit indirectly from the activities.  Therefore, indirect beneficiaries related to this project will be far bigger in number than those who will benefit directly.

(e)    reasons for the selection of the target groups and activities

Beyoglu district, like no other district in Istanbul gives a space of inhabitancy to many different ethnic, social and economically diverse population groups.  In this respect, Beyoglu has a diverse population which contains ethnic and religious minorities like Greeks, Jews, Armenians, and Roman Catholics.  Also, economically members of highest and lowest strata of the income pyramid can also be observed in this district.  This fact inevitably reflects the diversity of the students being educated in Beyoglu.  The student profile like the whole population profile is like a sample group of Turkey with its socio-economic variety.  There can be no place like Beyoglu, where one may have the opportunity to find a pool of students like this.  Even though, we have a potential of activating this pool of diversity, the actions done targeting these groups by local administration are insufficient. 

The young students in the regions, although having a sufficient education, do not have the chance to participate in the social life vigorously.  They can neither participate in the social issues and programmes, nor can they participate in the making of youth policies, which they are the subjects of.  In order to change this fact, in this project with Athens Municipality, Beyoglu Municipality will select 100 students 50 from Greece, 50 from Turkey, who will be the driving force of change in the establishment process of youth policies.  These 100 students will also assist the efforts in breaking down the prejudices between two countries and cultures, and they will initiate the actions for the socialization of the youth. 

During the project, via the web forum, students of both countries will discuss different issues deliberately for 5 months; consequently they will increase their level of knowledge on the subject.  The second target group of the project will be the local administrations and the NGOs. NGOs in this project will take over the role of lubricating the cooperation between the local administrations and the young population. Between the two main target groups, the local administration and the youth, NGOs will be the driving force for democratization and localization in the society. Inadequacy of communication and collaboration between local administrations and the youth will be remedied by NGOs in this project.

Youth for Habitat and ESYN will have the leading role in the projects for activating the relevant NGOs. These NGOs in the future will have more opportunities for making the youth integrated into the policy-making procedure of local administrations. At the same time, two NGOs which conducted projects jointly in the past, Youth for Habitat and ESYN, will have stronger links with each other and the chances for prospective joint projects will increase. As a result, in the Turkish accession process to the EU, two main targets of the project, the youth and the local administrations will develop themselves for the localization and democratization of Turkey. 

(f)      relevance of the action to the target groups

In this project a behavioural approach is pursued. In that order, the Youth Assembly and the conference will be conducted in a youth camp in Kefken, which is one of the best places for the young people to express their thoughts freely and effectively. The local administrations will have the opportunity to reach the ideas of experts, NGOs and the youth and grasp the information that they need to build their youth policies upon. Lastly, Turkey and Greece will be able to share their own experiences and also they will have the suitable occasion to know and understand each other much better. 

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