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Bodrum'da İnsanca Yaşam - O AΛΛΟΣ ΑΝΘΡΩΠΟΣ



Bodrum’da İnsanca Yaşam Derneği (Bodrum Humanity)

Areas of work: Displaced Population & Refugees
City and Country: Muğla, Turkey
Website: http://bodrumdainsanca.org
Social media accounts:
https://www.facebook.com/bodrumdainsancayasam/
https://www.instagram.com/bodrumdainsancayasam/
Contact: [email protected]

Turkey’s coastal touristic town on the Aegean Sea, Bodrum, is also a departure point widely used by refugees when crossing to Greece. Bodrum’da İnsanca Yaşam is an organization that has been working with socio-economically disadvantaged women and children, mainly with domestic migration background or Syrian refugees.

The organization has been running a community centre to support the refugees by providing basic survival needs, health and legal services, and Turkish language classes. All activities are free and open to everyone as the organization wants to encourage peace building and contribute to social cohesion.

O AΛΛΟΣ ΑΝΘΡΩΠΟΣ (Social Kitchen “The Other Human”)

Areas of work: Displaced Population & Refugees
City and Country: Athens, Greece
Website: http://oallosanthropos.blogspot.com/
Social media accounts: https://www.facebook.com/Ο-Αλλος-Ανθρωπος-Κοινωνικη-Κουζινα-Δωρεαν-Φαγητο-Για-Ολους-628150187199571/

Social Kitchen “The Other Human” works together with people having economic issues, dealing with addictions, health issues and other forms of difficulties in their everyday life. The initiative mainly focuses on refugees and rough sleepers.
Social Kitchen is an idea and action of solidarity. In that perspective, they cook every day on spot and share the food with the ones that are in need. These kitchens cook every day in 11 different spots in Athens and in 15 other places in the rest of Greece.
Additionally, they support the access to health and legal services, and they organize workshops and trainings with and for the communities they are working with.

Both teams, working with similar target groups on different sides of the Aegean Sea, we met in Bodrum at first. We organized a 3-day volunteering festival, proposing social activities and volunteering workshops, and food cooking, sharing and eating together on the spot.
In October 2017, Bodrum’da İnsanca Yaşam volunteers went to Athens for 3 days to share in Social Kitchen’s daily programme and participate to the Street Festival. We started with a cooking action in the Scaramanga Refugee Accommodation Center. The cooking activity reached almost 500 children and also offered face-painting, children’s games and other workshops for parents. Afterwards, during the Street Festival organized by Social Kitchen in the public space (dimosio sima) of Kerameikos, various workshops and seminars were held with the participation of collectives and initiatives from all over Greece. The main activities included but were not limited to selling second-hand clothes, cooking free food, demonstrating crafts including cloth recycling, and theatre and music performances. During the festival, Bodrum’da İnsanca Yaşam also sold bracelets created by the attendees of their own community centre.
During the exchange, we had the chance to see how each other work, how we can collaborate and search for new ways to resolve our problems.

“Our activities of mutual visits and sharing the events with Social Kitchen was very energizing, inclusive and motivating. Most importantly, we have learned that we are not alone; we can reach out to other groups who face the same problems.” Bodrum’da İnsanca Yaşam Derneği

“We gained useful experience collaborating with another initiative from another country. And now it is easier for us to do so again and create future partnerships from abroad.” O AΛΛΟΣ ΑΝΘΡΩΠΟΣ – Social Kitchen

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