“Active Student – Active Citizen” Project

Practice: We launched our summer school program, “Active Student – Active Citizen”, in Ağrı, in 2010 together with volunteering students and teachers. We organized the summer school program in Gaziantep in 2011; in Sinop in 2012; in Samsun in 2013; and in Kars in 2014.

Students are able to access the opportunity to teach, share their knowledge and skills, develop new social relationships, learn about the natural, historical, and cultural attractions of our destinations and experience the assets granted by our differences through the project, which went global. Accordingly, in June 2015, we visited “Motrat Qirijazi” (Çiryazı Sister School) in Prizren, Kosovo, which mostly has Kosovan-Turkish students.

For three weeks, our students delivered training on human rights, civics, and critical thinking as part of the program.

Tapping into this project, our volunteers helped the middle school students who studied at public schools in Prizren keep engaging in educational life during summer break. Moreover, the project developed the critical thinking skills and raises awareness of human rights both across our own students and those from the participating school, while culminating in a cultural interaction between the Prizren-based participants and our volunteering students. Thanks to this project, our students were introduced to the cultural mosaic in the region, as well.

At the end of the project, which was concluded successfully, over 100 participants received certificates in a ceremony and the Kosovan speakers expressed their satisfaction with the program.