Kırkayak Kültür Sanat ve Doğa Derneği (Kirkayak Culture Art and Nature Association)

Gaziantep is the city in southeastern Anatolia and it is the sixth largest city in Turkey. Its population, economical situation, tourism potential, and Greater Municipality make the city metropolitan. It is a neighboring city with Syria. Population is approximately 1.5 million and most of them are internal immigrant who has come here during last 50 years because of commercial and industrial opportunities. The city has a wide transportation network,including an international airport,railway station and links to major motorways. Gaziantep boasts 3 universities and a lot of state hospitals and private hospitals which are specialized in their area and engage in local and international.
There is a mosaic museum in the city which is the second largest mosaic museum in the world. Also,there are 8 more museums in the city.

The local state provide theatral and cultural events almost everyday in the culture centre. There are 6 big movie centres and also lots of bars,cafes and clubs in the city.

Centre of organization is a big building including free places for all types of activities. Also, there is , library, office and workshop room. Association centre is a suitable for free activities. It has got communication facilities, books, pictures, cultural and art materials. It is in the centre and very near all hospitals, shops, pharmacies, pubs, museums, castle and parks.

We can offer an opportunity for EVS volunteers to learn Turkish Language and oppurtunity to interact with amazing cultures and many differences. Also, the volunteers will gain experiences to lead a social and information campaign.

The volunteers can participate to learn some hand made materials activity,
-Workshop on photography
-Workshop on documentary film
-Short movies day
-Cinema film programs
-Photograph exhibition
-Conference on literature
-Maintaining and creating the film festival as ‘Onat Kutlar Film Festivali’
-Making documentary films and photographing cultural diversity of Anatolia
-Develop social responsibility projects, especially on ethnic minorities, women, and child labour subjects.-
-approve cultural and art materials we have,
-learn documentary films and photograph
-tour our historical and cultural area,
-learn economic, geographical, cultural and social structure of Turkey and our city by means of films, brochures and documentaries.

* The volunteers should participate all activities,

-join and help for organization our working plan,
-help staff for preparation of materials of social development seminars
-help staff for setting stands to distribute brochures and to organize information campaigns
-present their country and culture at the end of each seminars
-share experiences with volunteers who are planning to do EVS
-share and learn cultural heritage
-help garden works
-translate our informative materials from English to their languages
-visit some schools and share information about their countries.
-obey association rules
-teach something for the our target groups (dance, theatre, pantomime, chess, musical instrument etc)

We will rearange the activity programme taking views of volunteers. So that we can create a good programme that the volunteer could love it.

The volunteers should participate all activities,

-join and help for organization our working plan,
-help staff for preparation of materials of social development seminars
-help staff for setting stands to distribute brochures and to organize information campaigns
-present their country and culture at the end of each seminars
-share experiences with volunteers who are planning to do EVS
-share and learn cultural heritage
-help garden works
-translate our informative materials from English to their languages
-visit some schools and share information about their countries.
-obey association rules
-teach something for the our target groups (dance, theatre, pantomime, chess, musical instrument etc)

We would like to host volunteers who are motivated for intercultural learning and social development and respectful of diversity. The volunteers should be enthusiastic and keen to work in an international group.
The volunteers will draw attention during the activities. Therefore, we would like to host the volunteers who are keen to communicate and interact with people from different backgrounds.

We will announce the selected volunteers in our website for each project application and we will add the rejected volunteers with explanations on the reasons of rejection. Thus, we will hold a transparent selection process.
As a sending organization we will inform the volunteers we will send. They will be informed in a detailed way before being sent. So , they will not have any questions on their minds and they will attend the pre-departure training that is organized by the national agency.

We can host 2-4 volunteers in the association at the same time.In our organization there are 16 member who has good gualification. Except for this, there are about 20 person join our activities.All these taken into consideration, we will have the capacity of hosting 2 or 4 volunteers at the same time.For each volunteers there will be 2 people for the needs of the volunteers. That will enable them to live comfortably. If we think about the existence of the volunteers who spend some of their time in the office being busy with the works given to them, there will be many members who is going to take care of the needs of the volunteers. Except for all these, there will be some special programs for the volunteers to speed their learning process up.

The association is founded in 2011, as Kirkayak Culture Art and Nature Association (Kirkayak Art Center) in Gaziantep where one of important city in the southeastern region of Turkey. Main purposes of the association are realizing artistic and cultural activities in Gaziantep as centre of attempt, and in the other close cities such as Kilis, Adiyaman, źanliurfa, and in rural areas of all these regions. At the same time, the other target of the association is to protect the natural prosperity and diversity of these regions. First activity of the association was organizing a film festival under the name of ‘International Zeugma Film Festival’ in Gaziantep between 27th of May-30th of May 2011. The organization has intention to maintain similar activities in next years with same artistic and thematic care. In next two years, the association has many intentions for realizing and arranging different activities, such as concert, exhibition, movies, conferences, courses, and documentary film, registering human and natural prosperity of the region for creating different approach to cultural and natural facts of Gaziantep region and other close areas. And the association will try to effort for remembering the different ethnic language, cultural and historical heritage in these regions. Because of that people of the association who works voluntarily, such as photography artist, sociologist, historian, doctor, solicitor, teacher, architect, documentary film maker’s effort will carry on in these subjects.

The association plan for next two years by titles
-Workshop on photography
-Workshop on documentary film
-Short movies day
-Cinema film programs
-Photograph exhibition
-Conference on literature
-Maintaining and creating the film festival as ‘Onat Kutlar Film Festivali’
-Making documentary films and photographing cultural diversity of Anatolia
-Develop social responsibility projects, especially on ethnic minorities, women, and child labour subjects.

We have an old association building in city centre. Our centre is a cultural heritage because it is nearly 80 years old. It is a stone building and has got authentic atmosphere. There are a workshop room, an office room, a kitchen, a library.
If you want more information about association, you can find some photos in http://www.kirkayak.org/
AIMS

- With international projects and partnerships to create new opportunities for young people with fewer opportunities,
- To contribute to the personal development of young people, students and women,
- To contribute to development of society.
- To encourage entrepreneurship,
- To development of cooperation.
- To protect the cultural richness.
- To make our target groups aware of intercultural learning opportunities