Anka Youth Association

Name of the organization or artist

Email

info@ankayouthngo.org

Address

2092/14 Sokak No:13 Ankara

Country

Turkey

Website URL

http://www.ankayouthngo.org

Missions and objectives

ANKA Youth Association was established in 2017 as a youth group with four members and turned into an NGO in 2020 counting now more than 50 members (in 2020). The vision of the group forms around the motto, “We bring the World together.” Anka works in the youth field to promote inclusion of young people especially who have fewer opportunities to take active role in society, communities, and organizations, develop their skills, improve their performance, and exchange knowledge in order to face the needs of society and thus effectively contribute to the development of a European field of skills and qualifications. Anka’s goal is to encourage lifelong learning and transnational programs directly targeted at young people and youth workers through non-formal education. The core goal is to create new innovative techniques that will be applied at the level of civil society and therefore lead to social cohesion. ANKA’s founder members are university students and new graduates who have expertise in Erasmus+ Projects, and they had experience with all the objectives mentioned above. Therefore, Anka also promotes young youth workers to take an active role in non-formal learning. After they had enough experience and faith, they decided to establish this youth group to reach more and more young people to encourage them and experience all their aims. Anka’s team is growing day by day with new volunteers involving the team. Some of the interest areas of Anka are Erasmus+ youth exchanges, training courses, national solidarity corps projects, strategical partnerships in the field of youth, and implementation of those. In short, we promote all young people on a large scale of projects. Anka emphasizes on ensuring fair learning opportunities, encouraging human rights, cultivating the spirit of creativity and improving people’s skills, supporting intercultural interaction, promoting the solidarity between young people, information sharing and EU understanding through the active participation of young people and adults in mobility initiatives, entrepreneurship, personal development, developing young people’s awareness in the field of youth work, increasing the interaction between different cultures, raising young people’s awareness of obstacles and diverse living styles. Anka is closely linked to numerous public and private organizations at the national and international levels, including non-governmental organizations, universities, enterprises, communities, etc. ANKA Youth Association is also a member of the PRISMA European Network, a pan-european informal network of organisations active in the youth field and interested to raise the quality of their work through technology. Since 2016, PRISMA European Network adopted EQYP standard of quality in youth work. (https://www.prisma-network.eu/)
ANKA Youth Association is also a member of the Anna Lindh Foundation Network, which runs the largest network of youth and civil society organisations working for intercultural dialogue across North Africa, the Middle East, Europe and the Balkans.
(https://www.annalindhfoundation.org/)

Main Activities

ANKA Youth Association is mainly working in the field of youth, and inclusion of young people to society to make them active individuals. Anka has a young people profile. To make them involved, we use different methods such as art, sports, drama, languages, non-formal education methods, etc. On a national level, Anka also promotes dialog between local and regional authorities, universities, foundations, and other non-governmental organizations dealing with the enhancement of entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial learning, digital learning, training, and skills, personal development. With the help of local authorities, Anka conducts activities such as;
• Drama workshops
• Language Courses
• Theatre Workshops
• Sport Sessions: Such as Yoga with the Middle East Technical University Yoga Club
• English Speaking Club
• Environmental Awareness Activities
• Leadership workshops
• Team building activities
• Technological Tools Education workshops with the help of Ankara University Technopolis, etc.

Also, Anka has carried out a series of activities (workshops, seminars, and studies) in the areas of social entrepreneurship, examining skills and competences, human rights and active citizenship, etc. Additionally, volunteer training is regularly organized to promote the value of volunteering, and its team of volunteers counts more than 50 members. Moreover, with the help of different SMEs, Anka is helping young people to create job/internship opportunities. Also, planning leadership workshops. Anka is trying to create new workshop areas/abilities for young people where they will feel more active and leader. As giving leader roles for our workshops, we are creating a base for them to lead a group and to involve them in working life. With their new abilities and involvement in local projects, many of our volunteers found a way to express themselves better, and they found their job path thanks to these local activities.
One of the main objectives of Anka is to promote integration between cultures and counteract violence between cultures in Turkey and other countries. With culture, we mean the individuals.
Besides, one of the main priorities of Anka at the local level is environmental awareness. Since in the area, we work in our local community is in the danger of climate change. We have two lakes and forests in the area. The biggest lake in Ankara, which name is Mogan, is located here. Unfortunately, Mogan lake is in danger of climate change, also pollution, and drought. As young people, who work for society and action, we took the role to maintain the sustainability of our living places. Therefore, we started a project for the long term, which promotes environmental awareness actions inside. It begins from the information sessions in our training center to explain the climate change, the consequences, and actions we should take.
Moreover, we are conducting different environmental activities such as cleaning the forest and the park around the lake with the participation of local volunteers. After these activities, we also started to work on environmental awareness topic deeply. In international level, we had three international youth exchange projects about nature, and environment which are Sports for Youth, Natural Peace, Academy of Economy, which all promoted environmental activities with the help of sports, a music and theatre festival in a local village, healthy life styles, recycling, etc. In national level, As Anka, we have prepared a European Solidarity Corps project in solidarity part in national level, and it includes monthly workshops, planting activities, covered climate change, eco-business ideas, organic farming, cleaning activities, and voluntary activities in local level with our team members.
Additionally, Art is the way to make our volunteers involved; we usually use art since it is the way to include young people more into society. Art is the way of impression, contact, sport, health, and thought. Art makes people imagine more and live comradely. Due to this reason, Anka is trying to involve more young people in their workshops at the national level. Anka is creating drama and music workshops in their office often.
Moreover, volunteers are chosen to lead many workshops. Many of our volunteers know how to play different musical instruments. Also, we are working with the Middle East Technical University’s Modern Arts Department and having their help for our national workshops. Mostly we are involving college students in our workshops. Moreover, we are working and promoting the METU Musical Team which they create musical shows. With the help of our national project and the collaboration with METU, we are trying to create new areas for young people where they will feel more active and leader.

Contact person

Begüm Merve Demirsoy