Projects 2013

YEAR/NUMBER	PROJECT NAME	PROJECT AIM (BRIEF INFO ABOUT THE PROJECT)
HUMAN RIGHTS LAW RESEARCH CENTER
2006 - ….	Legal Assistance Network (Pro Bono)	Since 2006, Istanbul Bilgi University Human Rights Law Research Center has been running a pro bono aid network. Just like its predecessors abroad, lawyers work voluntarily. Free legal advice is offered to the non-governmental organizations that have meager means to pay for a lawyer, sometimes individual applicants are channeled through these NGOs for legal advice. In a sense, this is a work the lawyers carry out in parallel with their social responsibility. (For more information: https://probono.bilgi.edu.tr/en/)
2011-2014	European Sourcebook of Crime and Criminal Justice Statistics–Data Contribution	European Sourcebook of Crime and Criminal Justice Statistics is an ongoing project and publications produced by European Sourcebook Group, in the context of different research projects that aim to collect, organise and analyse data regarding crime and criminal justice system in European countries. The main publication that is produced in this way "European Sourcebook of Crime and Criminal Justice Statistics" was published first in 1999, and since then five editions were published. For the 4th edition that was published in 2010 and the 5th that was published in 2015, Asst. Prof. Galma Akdeniz (member of the Human Rights Law Research Center) collected crime and justice data for Turkey and thus contributed to the publication.
2012-2014	Women’s Collaboration for Gender Justice	The project is led by Purple Roof Women’s Shelter Foundation. Istanbul Bilgi University Human Rights Law Research Center, Van Women Association and Antalya Women’s Solidarity Center are among the partner institutions. The overall objective of the project is to make problems faced by women who are subject to male violence in applying legal mechanisms and using their rights more visible; raise awareness of target groups to such issues; draw attention to the bond between legal arrangements and law enforcement; raise functionality of existing mechanisms in a way to enhance gender justice and gender equality.
January 2013-December 2014	Developing Judicial Training for Restorative Justice: Towards a European Approach	İstanbul Bilgi University Human Right Law Research Center was one of the seven partners in this project, headed by the European Forum for the Restorative Justice. The project is funded by the European Commission. In the context of this project, restorative justice trainings of the members of the judiciary in the project partner countries were researched, expert meetings were held, and trainings for the members of the judiciary were organised. A report regarding the availability of the restorative justice trainings to the members of the judiciary in Turkey was prepared by the Center.
July 2013-July 2015	Technical Assistance for Prevention of Domestic Violence Against Women	The project is a European Union Technical Assistance Project that aims at strengthening the capacity of the General Command of Gendarmerie for the prevention of domestic violence against women in Turkey. The project is implemented by the consortium led by Ecorys Research and Consulting (Turkey) and composed of Istanbul Bilgi University Human Rights Law Research Center, Ecorys Research and Consulting (United Kingdom) and BOLT International Consulting (Greece).The overall objective of the project is ensuring the respect of human rights among citizens based on gender equality and minimizing domestic violence incidents particularly against women.
December 2013-November 2014	Promoting Access to Constitutional Compliant in Turkey	The project is carried out simultaneously in various European states and Civil Society Development Center (STGM) is the main partner in Turkey. Within the context of the project, in order to inform the general public, Istanbul Bilgi University Human Rights Law Research Center produced a manual and created a web-site.
2003-….	BILGI Law Clinic	The legal clinic is as much a method of law education as an outcome of the law faculty’s policy of directly serving society. This policy of education and social responsibility was introduced to law education in the US in the 1960s. At that time, the main aim was protecting the rights of black Americans, who were deprived of protections provided by law and lived in a society rift because of racial discrimination. Underlying the legal clinic is the idea of providing legal services to segments of society without access to such services to solve their legal problems. During the preparatory year preceding 2003, when education started at the clinic, the Bilgi Faculty of Law collaborated with the law schools of the American University and Georgetown University in Washington, DC, the Eötvös Lorand University (ELTE) in Hungary, and the University of KwaZulu in Natal, the Republic of South Africa, considering their strong and prolonged experience in clinical law education. Working meetings were held at these universities and in Istanbul, and followed by a capacity building program in this area.
EUROPEAN INSTITUTE
2013/1	Jean Monnet: European Values at School	The project aimed at providing education and preparing educational materrial on values identified with the EU, such as freedoms, the equality of men and women, rights of people with disabilities and environmental awareness, for teachers and students at primary schools, high schools and occupational high schools, which make up a major part of civil society in Turkey.
2013/2	Jean Monnet: Enhancing Learning EU at School	The e-book project launched in 2012 and developed as a tool compatible with the tablets used in the Ministry of Education's Fatih Project, was expanded. The language of the e-book was simplified and six animation and computer games were added. The e-book prepared contained information about the EU, such as its history, institutions, law, waves of expansion, and economic and political integration. It also described fundamental EU policies, including agriculture, education, youth, social policy, competition and consumer protection. In addition, the e-book contains a discussion on topics such as the perspective of EU citizenship and citizenship, participatory and plural democracy, civil society and the European public sphere, media and the EU, globalization, and the limits of the EU and Europe. A variety of visual and audio materials (animations, computer games and videos) were used in the e-book, which can be downloaded from Istanbul Bilgi University website..
2013/3	Marie Curie Enlargement and EU funded projects in Turkey: from design to implementation (EUTUR)	The project involved conducting a study of EU-funded projects in Turkey and, in particular, the policy tools and techniques used in the implementation of those projects. It was concerned with finding out what impact they had on the recognition of civil society organizations conducting EU-funded projects and on the European funds in Turkey.
2013/4	Jean Monnet Chair in EU Political and Administrative Studies	The project aims to provide students with a better understanding of the European integration process through supporting research, the enhancement of university networks and funding various teaching activities.
2013/5	Jean Monnet Chair: European Politics of Interculturalism	The project aims to provide students with a better understanding of the European integration process through supporting research, the enhancement of university networks and funding various teaching activities.
2013/6	Digital European Union: An e-book for High School Students	The project aims to increase the level of participation to EU related processes and to reduce prejudices towards the EU among citizens of Turkey by enhancing knowledge and awareness among young citizens of Turkey of issues related to the European integration.
2013/7	Identities and Modernities in Europe: European and National Identity Construction Programmes and Politics, Culture, History and Religion	European identity is in a constant state of construction that has no end. The aim of this project was to understand the very different processes involved in the creating European identity through the use of the "pluralist modernity" paradigm. This study, which contains the findings of research done in Bulgaria, Croatia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Turkey and the UK, reveals that European identities are not monolithic but rather pluralistic.
CENTER FOR MIGRATION RESEARCH
2013/1	Network on Seasonal Labour Migration	A network designed to increase the communication between researchers and academicians, local, national and international public and private organizations, NGOs and the representatives of affiliated social parties, and individuals working on seasonal labor migration in Turkey; to support partnerships; to collect information on the topic; to create awareness and to recommend social policies.
2013/2	Child Labor in Seasonal Migratory Agriculture-Round Table Meetings	The roundtable meetings are designed to share knowledge and experience by bringing people who conduct research on child labor in seasonal agricultural work together with stakeholders that may be interested in the subject, and to contribute to making recommendations that will make the problem more visible.
2013/3	Tarlabaşı Community Center	The Tarlabaşı Community Center was founded to help strengthen social participation and reduce discrimination for the residents of the Tarlabaşı neighborhood. Through its educational and social activities, it has been supporting social integration there.
2013/4	Remapping Europe	The project was conducted in the UK, Spain, Poland and Turkey. It consisted of the review of prevailing visual and audio images and narratives about migrants by young participants from these countries and developing new media works by using digital story-telling techniques and creative media tools. The goal was to have participants share their own perspectives through these works with broad audiences on both local and international platforms.
CENTER FOR CIVIL SOCIETY STUDIES
NGO TRAINING AND RESEARCH UNIT
2013/1	Youth Campus for Social Rights	The aim of the project was to increase young people's awareness of human rights and to develop their advocacy skills , and to empower them through advocacy and training workshops.
2013/2	Public Expenditures Monitoring Platform	Under the auspices of the NGO Training and Research Unit, the Public Expenditures Monitoring Platform aims at monitoring the conversion of taxes collected from taxpayers into decisions made in the parliament as to how they will be spent. It works to maintain the transparency of this process, to increase social welfare spending, and to promote the effective use of the taxes collected. Towards this end, since 2010, public expenditure-monitoring workshops and camps have been held. Moreover, the results of the public expenditure monitoring conducted with CSOs that are members of the platform, and related recommendations have been drawn up in letter form and sent to parliamentarians. Since September 2012, these letters have included the expenditures made on health, social security, social assistance-services, children, youth, the disabled, justice, local governments, and military and domestic security. These letters are also shared with the public online (www.kahip.org).
2013/4	Network: Youth and Participation Project	The project aimed at strengthening the participation of young citizens and CSOs working with youth in public discussions and decision-making mechanisms. It also aimed at supporting the social participation of young people.
CENTER FOR CIVIL SOCIETY STUDIES
YOUTH STUDIES UNIT
2012/3	Policy Recommendations for Supporting the Local Participation of Youth	This project examined the channels through which youth participate in local governments and the structures of national youth councils; evaluated the public-CSO cooperation model which has being implemented in four different municipalities in Greece; developed and conducted a questionnaire to measure youth participation; and prepared an assessment report containing quantitative analysis of local participation of youth in Turkey. This report was presented at the project's closing meeting held at Peloponnese University on 25 January.
2013/1	Citizen Journalism	Through the manual published and online guide produced within the scope of the project, the "Bir Maruzatım Var" Video Project" wasshared with civil society as a model. In addition, two workshops, one national and one international, were held to empower young people's skills for citizen journalism enabling their use of video sharing not only as a way to express themselves, but also as a news outlet,
2013/2	A Comparative Analysis of Youth and the Media Project	A quantitative study based on an online survey about social media and media relations of youth and youth organizations in Turkey was conducted.
2013/3	Video Activism	A field visit was made to Sweden and six local workshops were held in different provinces in Turkey to assess and share the experience obtained from the Bir Maruzatım Var projects of previous years.
2013/4	The Experiences of Young Women in the Market-Family-State Triad	The research focused on "being a young woman," which is located on the lower rungs of the age and womanhood hierarchy and had not been studied comprehensively in previous research and aimed to make the experiences of young women more visible. First, general employment statistics related to young women were analyzed. The qualitative part of the study focused on two groups of young women, being young women who neither go to school or to work but stay at home and young women who have grown in institutions under legal protection of state without any familiy connections.
2013/5	Bir Maruzatım Var II	An international workshop was conducted with a group of the youth that had previously participated in the Bir Maruzatım Var and Video Activism workshops. The Video Activism Guidebook and Internet website were translated into English.
2013/6	Youth Bank Project	The project functioned as a small grant program whereby resources were made available to empower youth groups by increasing their social participation to raise the quality of life in their neigborhood by supporting youth initiated projects in their locals to meet the needs of other youth in the area where they are living.The project was implemented in collaboration with seven different youth centers across Turkey. One of these was the Kısa Dalga (Short Wave) Youth Center, which operates under the Youth Studies Unit.
2013/7	Youth Campus for Human Rights	The Youth Campus for Human Rights Project was jimplemented in partnership with the Community Volunteers Foundation and the EU Turkey Delegation. It was an 18-month project that aimed at raising the awareness among youth about human rights and developing new, innovative and creative tools that peeple engaging in advocacy work and committed to use their talents and energy to defend human rights could use. Within the scope of the project local advocacy projects with ten youth groups from different provinces accross Turkey had been carried out. To make this possible two face-to-face training programs, one distance-learning programs, mid-term evaluation meetings, study visits and field visits were organised for youth active in these projects. In addition, at the end of the project, two publications, one as a conceptual and one as a practical guide were prepared, but not published.
CENTER FOR CIVIL SOCIETY STUDIES
CHILD STUDIES UNIT
2013/1	Empowering Families to Promote Gender Equality for Children	The aim of the project was to fight discrimination against children on the basis of gender. It attempted to do this by - Raising awareness among school counselors and psychologists about gender equality and carrying out projects on the subject with them, - Distributing gender-based educational games prepared for children and analysing their impact, - Studying attitudes of families towards gender and the impact of families on the development of children's perception of gender, - Conducting information and awareness raising educational activities at schools for families.
2013/2	Towards Democratic Schools: Participatory Practices that Empower Schools and Students	The project's goal was to facilitate the full effective participation of the natural stakeholders of schools - children, parents, teachers, school administrators and employees - in the educational processes and decision-making mechanisms. To achieve this, the project aimed at developing and spreading "participatory school" practices by helping stakeholders to acquire information, skills and favorable attitudes towards democratic citizenship and human rights.
2013/3	Children's Rights-Oriented Critical Media Literacy Program	The program's objective was to empower teachers' about use of media, children's rights and critical media literacy so that they could take media literacy into consideration when preparing their classes which in turn will foster critical media literacy among students.
2013/4	20 November Children's Rights Day Project	The project's objective was raising awareness among children about children's rights and gender equality.
2013/5	Reinforcing the Participation of Civil Society in Preventing Violence against Children	The project aimed at increasing the capacity of civil society organizations and people working on preventing violence against children in Turkey.
2013/6	Schools in Sarıyer on the Way to Democracy	The purpose of the project was to foster participatory democracy in the schools in the district of Sarıyer by empowering the practice of school assemblies in junior high schools, as an essential part of democratic school culture, through collaboration with local government and schools.
2013/7	Children have a Say Radio Program	The program aimed at enabling children to have their voices heard in media through radio.
2013/8	Children have a Say Training for Trainers	The goal was to provide a training for people working the field of children's rights in Denizli.
2013/9	Empowering Workshops for TEGV Volunteers: Volunteer Participation Development Project	The project was designed to help raise awareness of children's rights, discrimination, gender and peace education in volunteers who work with children at the various TEGV activity points, as well as in the instructors that train them, and to increase their skills in sharing this knowledge with the children.
2013/10	Youth Friendly High Schools	The aim of the project was to raise young people who are aware of human rights and responsibilities, and can recognize and respect differences. The means through which this was enabled was development and implemantation of democratic citizenship and human rights education programs in schools and facilitating school-family cooperation regarding this subject.
2013/11	Child Friendly Local Initiative	The aim of the initiative was to raise awareness in schools in Sarıyer about children's rights and to empower them to protect children's rights more effectively..
2013/12	Children's Participation Festival	A half-day children's rights-themed festival was held on 24 April 2013 for the children of MSD employees. 82 students from two age groups - preschool and primary school - participated in the activity. The puppet, animation, drawing and collage activities were realized with the children were shared with parents.
2013/13	Children's Rights Festival	A half-day children's rights-themed festival was held on 14 March 2013 for the children of Roche employees. 23 students from two age groups- preschool and primary school - participated in the event. Activities from the Compasito Children's Rights Education with Children book were implemented with the children.
CENTER FOR SOCIOLOGY AND EDUCATION STUDIES
2013/1	Discussing Social Issues in Educational Settings: Teachers and Academics joint Study and Production Project	The aim of the project was to foster the ability of teachers to discuss social problems in the classroom. Workshops were held for one academic year with 25 teachers from difference branches and levels at Terakki Foundation Schools. The sample training modules developed at the conclusion of these workshops were collected in book "Disability and Gender-Based Discrimination: Sample Lesson Plans for Primary and Secondary School.
2013/2	Human Rights in Textbooks III Project	In this project, which was run jointly with the Historical Foundation of Turkey, 245 primary and secondary textbooks were reviewed . The resulting Review Report, written by Kenan Çayır and published in both Turkish and English, was shared with official institutions and civil society organizations. In addition, as part of the project, 2 activity books on the History of Civilizations were published.
2013/3	Teacher’s Workshop: “Discussing Controversial Issues in Educational Settings” Certificate Program	The program was jointly carried out with the Education Reform Initiative to help teachers develop their ability to critically discuss social problems in the classroom. In the 15-week program, in which 50 teachers participated, the different dimensions of discrimination were discussed by academicians.
2013/4	Becoming a Thinking School for Student Development	This project, which was jointly run with the Education Reform Initiative, provided training to teachers at Hasköy Junior High School to develop their critical thinking skills and to spread an innovative and interactive educational approach.
2013/5	Empowering Workshops for TEGV Volunteers: Volunteer Participation Development Project	Workshops were held on the topics of discrimination, gender, children's rights and peace for volunteers engaged in various activities with children as part of the Turkish Education Volunteers Foundation (TEGV).
2013/6	Purple Certificate Program	The purpose of this program, which was conducted with the Sabancı University Gender and Women's Studies Forum, was to raise awareness among teachers about gender. It did this through a certificate program and workshops. .
CULTURAL POLICY AND MANAGEMENT RESEARCH CENTER
2013/2014	Hadımköy, Arnavutköy Living Environment Museum and its Vicinity Display and Arrangement Service Procurement Project	The train station complex, which was one stop on the Orient Express and was built in the 1890s in Hadımköy, a district currently part of the Arnavutköy Municipality, stopped being used in the 1980s. The station has a significant place in the socio-economic and cultural life of Hadımköy. The board-approved restoration of its buildings is continuing. At this stage, the plan is to prepare a project design to convert the two-story 430 m2 building (no. 2) and the single-story 147 m2 building (no. 1), together with their interior and exterior space, into a museum. The museum is being conceived of as a "living museum," through which works, historical documents, visuals, films, and first-hand witnesses documenting the urban and cultural transformation over time of Arnavutköy will be shared with the public. Interactive learning and having a good time will be emphasized at the museum.
CENTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT, ENEGY AND SUSTAINABILITY RESEARCH
2013/1	Environmental Problems Awareness-Raising Project	The project provided information about environmental problems to housewifes and primary school children in Mersin and Karabuk in a single full-day program.
CENTER FOR INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS LAW RESEARCH
2013	Project for Supporting Copyrights in the Audiovisual Sectors Put into Practice	This project involved recommendations as solutions to the problems encountered in the cinema sector in Turkey with respect to copyrights management by taking into consideration examples from other countries.
FACULTIES
FACULTY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES
2012-2014	Aware Family - Healthy Generations	The aim was improving mother-child relations and reducing violence against children.
FACULTY OF COMMUNICATIONS
2013/1	Kara	A documentary on ecology was produced.
2008-	Adım Adım/Step by Step	The project aims at raising awareness and developing funding opportunities through sports for CSOs operating in Turkey.