The Association to Support Contemporary Life (ÇYDD) held an evening for their 31st anniversary and thanked all their supporters that gave them a hand in their endeavor to create a contemporary society.

ÇYDD is 31 Years Old

The Association to Support Contemporary Life (ÇYDD) held an evening for their 31st anniversary and thanked all their supporters that gave them a hand in their endeavor to create a contemporary society.

ÇYDD continues to serve since 1989 and their idealhas always been to bring about a contemporary society and contemporary individuals. A special evening was organized to say thank you to all the supporters throughout the years. The event took place the evening of February 21, 2020, at the Süleyman Seba Culture and Arts Center of the Beşiktaş Municipality. The donors, branch teams, the staff, volunteers and the youth all came together.

ÇYDD President Prof. Dr. Ayşe Yüksel gave a speech. She reminded the audience that the association was established on February 21, 1989 by Prof. Dr. Aysel Ekşi and some very prominent people.The intent was to become a contemporary country through contemporary education with the leading light of Atatürk’s principles and reforms. During the years 1990-2009, under the leadership of Prof. Dr. TürkanSaylan, the association focused on finding solutions to enlighten the society on the whole and specifically to prepare the youth for the future. This is how ‘You Can Light a Candle too’ project came to be.

Prof. Dr. Ayşe Yüksel said, “As ÇYDD our duty has been to preserve the principles and reforms of Atatürk and secure the gains brought forth by the Republic he formed.  We wish to develop public opinion and to help enhance the mental powers of scientific thinking and questioning in our society in order to provide solutions to establishing a contemporary life and education with respect to human rights. We knew that solely providing scholarships would not be enough for this.  Hence, we developed various projects.

We started the mentoring project to help young people with their personal development and carrier goals. With our ÇYDD Rural Areas Unit we started educational projects in selected areas of Anatolia to provide a contemporary education for children, youth and women. The project we developed to open village schools moved forward like an avalanche and brought together public institutions, NGOs and supportershelping rural areas to fend education for girls.  We created kindergarten schools, built play grounds and set up dormitories for girls.  With our coding project in 26 cities at 66 branches and cultural centers, 499 volunteer instructors were able train 2551 students. During the past 30 years of our association, in the beginning our Türkan Teacher and afterwards to carry out her dream, Aysel Teacher, together with their teams, worked hard to bring education especially to female students. We are continuing on our path with what we learned from them.”

Prof. Dr. Yüksel concluded her words saying, “We came together for the future of our children and grew stronger together to give them an education. We are always with them for a contemporary life.  We are grateful to all the donors, supporters, volunteers and workers who have been with us for the past 30 years.”
 

ÇYDD explained by numbers
 
 
• More than 100 thousand students received scholarships.  Our project ‘I Have a Daughter in Anatolia Who Will Be a Teacher’ provided 89,650 and our project ‘You Can Light a Candle’ provided 36,005 scholarships.
 
• With 28 Contemporary Activity Centers we are supporting the social and personal development of our students.
 
• We supplied 3,600 book shelves and founded 31 libraries.  We gave more than 5 million books.

• With our Mentoring Project we worked with 1,350 mentees.
 
• With our Coding Project running since 2016 in 66 branches and activity centers, 499 instructors worked with 2551 students.

• With projects supporting education we built 2 highschools, 6 kindergarten schools, 24 primary education schools, 32 village schools, 26 dormitories, 769 kindergarten classes and 560 playgrounds.  We thank everyone who contributed.

Photographs: Nasuh Bektaş 

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