Diaries 2005

10.08.05
Actually, before i came here i thought that there will be a boring athmosphere over there. But now, i see that everybody is like met hey just trying to find out each other, and the “other” culture but in such a kind way. İf it is a brief of yesterda, yes a little bit tiring journey but exciting. Meeting othe friends made me happy. Because being able to talk and discuss without any prejudice made me feel free in my mind. And i want to add that i have had no idea about people from armenia, not bad things…but now, i am getting gave more and more ideas about them and i can see everybody is trying to learn. I want to learn also.

11.08.05
I am going to tell about yesterday, the first exact day of summer school. Normally, the firsts are too hard but i believe in that we have done very well. At first, Sinan gökçen told us about the programme. What are we gonna do and what is our aim.. so we seperated into small groups which have four-five people and tried to know each other and tried to find our pur culture our group includes gevorg, Dicle, lilit, me and Nazan. We have talked about marriage in turkeyand armenia. That was ok. İ learnt lots of things about themççbut there is a problem in my mind that how can we turn that into a product at the end of the summer school. Now i am thinking on it. Anyway, after group work, murat belge talked with us on about history..i had a new way of understanding history. In his speech he told that everybody, every country tries to forget their past just to have a brilliant future. Because only with a clear past you can have a perfect future. İ am going to think about it. Also i cant pass it we met sevan nisanyan who teached me lots of things about diffrent cultures in turkey. And i believe in that there are lots of things to learn for me.

12.08.05
At school, i have always complained about that there was no chance for us to introduce ourselves and create our own things. That was my biggest problem at high school also at university. But yesterday i have seen that yes. We have a chance and very big chance to introduce ourselves as we got our first newspaper which is made by cemil, mariam, luisine and Mustafa. That makes me feel happy and confident. We also talked about literature, turkish literature and greek one. Some turkish writers like as ziya Gökalp and ömer Seyfettin; made nationalism propagandas in their boks and that caused some problems to trust other countries again. It was the most interesting idea form e that i catched in the speech. After this speech sevan nisanyan- iam so proud that i could talked to him. Came and talked about armenia- which is so important form e cause i have know nothing about…we have discussed about two hours and than we went outside ..we went to museum, st.pierre church.

15.08.05
It was my second visit to vakiflikoy on Sunday but i started but i started to feel like that was the village i go so often. I started to know people over there..and the most interesting thing form e, some of them also behaved me so close like the relative or something else. The ceremony was so interesting form e. I just thought that, yes they are so close to each other and they are happy of being armenian in turkey being together. I also talked some interesting sentences from their speech. I am going to tell that in the newspaper. But i am so happy being there.

Support to the Armenia-Turkey Normalisation Process is a programme implemented by a Consortium of eight civil society organisations from both countries with the financial assistance of the European Union under the Instrument for Stability

The overall objective of the programme is to promote civil society efforts towards the normalisation of relations between Turkey and Armenia and towards an open border by enhancing people-to-people contacts, expanding economic and business links, promoting cultural and educational activities and facilitating access to balanced information in both societies. 

The Consortium partners include Civilitas Foundation (CF), Eurasia Partnership Foundation (EPF), Public Journalism Club (PJC), Regional Studies Center (RSC) from Armenia; and Anadolu Kültür, the Economic Policy Research Foundation of Turkey (TEPAV), Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly (hCa), and Hrant Dink Foundation from Turkey.  The programme will include a series of activities such as media support, TV talk shows and citizen reporting to contribute to better mutual understanding.

The programme will also include travelling discussions; workshops and trainings for youth and teachers; exchange of artists, architects, and entrepreneurs; fellowship opportunities and travel support to enhance encounters and cooperation across the border. Research on business and economic opportunities; celebrity discussions about the past; and opinion exchanges of high-level former officials will also be a part of the programme. 

One of the main pillars of the Programme is inclusiveness – to engage and support new actors in the dialogue process. To this end, the Consortium created a Grant Scheme to invite individuals and civil society organisations from Armenia and Turkey - other than the Consortium members - to propose and implement their own project ideas, which will contribute to the overall objective of the Programme and multiply the shared outcomes. 

The results of all activities will be shared with the public through the trilingual website, which will serve as a networking tool featuring the overall picture of the past, current, and future developments in Armenia-Turkey dialogue initiatives. 

For further information, please contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.