Young Social Entrepreneurs Meeting -2 Report

Aim

In Turkey, more young people take a step to make difference with many local or international projects day by day, enter

the social entrepreneurship ecosystem. In order to that YAŞÖM has gathered together Turkey’s young social

entrepreneurs who made a difference or who want to do it. Our goals were to make them share their stories and to

solve the problems together which they had encountered in their journeys. By gathering them together the meeting had

aims to promote the relations between the entrepreneurs and to enhance the social impact. Hülya Denizalp, Mine Ekinci

and Ali Ercan Özgür who are the pioneers of Turkish social entrepreneurship also took part as speakers.

Place and Date: Afacan Youth House-İzmir / 14-17 September 2018.

Number of Total Participants: 20

1. Armenian : 5

2. Turkish: 8

3. YAŞÖM Team: 4

4. Guest Speakers: 3

Total Number of Accommodation Nights: 45 ( 24 nights for Armenian participants and 3 YAŞÖM team member, 18 nights

for 8 Turkish participants and 1 YAŞÖM team member, 2 nights for guest speaker Hülya Denizalp, 1 Night for guest

speaker Mine Ekinci)

The entire program has been planned and implemented by YAŞÖM volunteers. FIOH (Future in Our Hands) was our

Armenian partner whom we had already visited in Armenia and as follow up project they had been part of this

meeting as well. (Brief information about first meeting: The aim of the meeting was to meet with Armenian Young Social

Entrepreneurs and to discuss about social problems that young people are facing in Armenia). Beyond Borders project

covered the travel expenses of Armenian participants. Umverteilen Foundation covered the accommodation for the

meeting in Afacan Youth House.

*You can find more information about organizations in the bottom.

Plan of the Meeting

Activities of the Plan

● All the activities had been implemented with non-formal methods by YAŞÖM volunteers.

● In the meeting we had 2 main sections and most of the planning activities happened in 2nd day of the

programme.

o In the first section; invited speakers had their speeches about their journey as a social entrepreneur and

introduced their social enterprises. This way we aimed to inspire our participants in their own journey.

o In the second section; we had our group discussions where we talked about our problems that we are

facing with our own organizations and tried to create innovative solutions about how we can solve

them. Another topic was how we can cooperate in the future.

● In the beginning we have learned participants’ fear and expectations and in the end we made evaluation. This

way we have learned if we reached our aim and which parts were successful and which parts needed to be

changed for the future meetings.

● Each participant had their own 4 minutes to explain about their initiatives with creative way using Pecha Kucha

method (https://www.pechakucha.org/watch).

● Afacan Youth House was program’s social enterprise that we were able to understand how it works and why it

is a social enterprise.

● Cultural night was one of the main events we would like to have, since we have participants from different cities

and a country. This was also helped participants to know a bit about Armenian Culture.

● Meeting language was Turkish and 2 of YAŞÖM volunteers did simultaneous translations for the Armenian

participants. Tour and giving information was made by manager Filiz Sabahgil.

● Because of the flight situation of Armenian participants we had to extend our programme one more day and

during this time we discovered more about local city.

● At the last day of the meeting we had an evaluation with Armenian group to talk about how we can collaborate

more in the future.

* You can find infographics which is showing more information about participants’ expectations, fears and how this

meeting was effective for them.

Guest Speakers

Hülya Denizalp

Denizalp, a social entrepreneur and a youth trainer, who is deeply committed to education

and youth development, has leads the way with GENÇTUR by offering new and different

opportunities to young people in the middle economic class to develop them. At the same

time, she worked as a vice president at the European Service Organizations Association

(ALLIANCE) for four years and also she is one of the trainers of this network. She is among the

founders of Ashoka TURKEY. Since 2002, she has a radio programme about “social

entrepreneurship for social transformation” at Açık Radyo. The booklet she wrote about social

entrepreneurship published by the Civil Society Development Center and distributed

throughout Turkey. She is currently the mentor of Yaşayarak Öğrenme Merkez-YAŞÖM.

Mine Ekinci

She has been the chairman of the executive board of KODA, as meaning Village School

Exchange Network, since its establishment on December 2016. Starting from 2010, she

has worked with the non-governmental organizations and civil initiatives which work on

the fields of education, human rights and social policies. She has a bachelor in Political

Science and International Relations from Boğaziçi University and also a master degree

from Harvard University in International Education Policies. Ekinci is interested in

education in rural, education policies and social entrepreneurship in education.

Ali Ercan Özgür

Started his volunteer works with Habitat Association, Özgür has executed many social works. In

2015, with 7 collaborators he established İhtiyaç Haritası Platform, as meaning Map of Needs. The

platform aims to supply the basic needs of Turkish cities and neighborhoods with the participation of

the citizens. Actively continuing social responsibility Works, Özgür gave the Social Entrepreneurship

lecture in Department of Sociology of Istanbul University for NGO and social responsibility

management master programme. Özgür has become a role model for young people who work on

this area by his social entrepreneurship works and important projects he made in the civil society.

Conclusion

● According to our evaluation with the participants, we saw that these gatherings are very useful to make them

inspire and learn from each other and from guest speakers. So we would like to continue this program every

year.

● One of the main negative feedback from participants were, we couldn’t have enough time to discuss more about

our own initiatives so we would like to add one more additional day to make them contact more with each

other.

● Next year we would like to cover some part of participants’ transportation expenses so we can reach more

participants from different cities easily.

Organizations

YAŞÖM

Yaşayarak Öğrenme Merkezi (YAŞÖM) as meaning Informal Learning Center was established on January 2011 with the

support of Genctur. Our vision is the proliferation and internalization of informal learning between the young people at

this era when receiving to information is relatively easy. Our missions are to take the initiative for youth to make them

produce new projects for themselves and for the society by setting a place where people can share their perfections and

learn from each other.

https://www.yasom.org

www.facebook.com/yasayarakogrenmemerkezi

BEYOND BORDERS TRAVEL GRANT

Beyond Borders are Hrant Dink Foundation (Turkey) and Gyumri Youth Initiative (Armenia) partner who support travel

fund and scholarship. Free from the politic changes, it is in cooperation with civil society and supports the direct contact

between two countries. YAŞÖM and FIOH had get grants for travel each other’s country to be able to learn more about

social entrepreneurship in the both countries.

http://www.armtr-beyondborders.org/

FIOH

Future in Our Hands (FIOH) is one of the youth NGO’s in Armenia. The young organization’s building block is to provide

social benefit. The organization Works with children and young people and they make events for education and

awareness works.

www.fioh-ngo.com/