Projects 2015

YEAR/NUMBER	PROJECT NAME	PROJECT AIM (BRIEF INFORMATION ABOUT THE PROJECT)
HUMAN RIGHTS LAW RESEARCH CENTER
October 2014-January 2016	Social Media and Minorities Project	Social Media and Minorities Project assesses the role of social media in promoting equal citizenship and existing (legal) limitations regarding freedom of expression. The project takes a step towards enhancing social and political participation of non-Muslim minorities by focusing on social media as a means. The project is implemented by Yeniköy Virgin Mary Greek Orthodox Church and School in partnership with İstanbul Bilgi University Human Rights Law Research Center and Hellenic Foundation For European And Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP). The overall objective of the project is to contribute to the situation of non-Muslim communities in Turkey as socially vulnerable groups by enhancing their social and political participation as equal citizens. The specific objectives of the project are: to explore and enhance the social media as a means to increase social and political participation of Non-Muslim community members and as a safe space for non-Muslim community members to exercise their freedom of speech; and to identify legal limitations around social media specifically regarding hate speech and/or insult. The project is financed in the context of Civil Society Dialogue Between EU And Turkey.
September-November 2015	Toolkit and Training about Artistic Freedom of Expression	This project, implemented by the Human Rights Law Research Center with Siyah Bant Initiative and supported by the Consulate General of Sweden in Istanbul aims to support the protection and improvement of freedom of artistic expression of artists and art institutions in Turkey.
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/)
2003-….	BILGI Legal 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
2015/1	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.
2015/2	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.
2015/3	Marie Curie - The Europeanization of the Organizations in the Prospect of the European Integration (EUROCS)	The project raises key questions regarding the role of youth organizations in the Europeanization process. It adopts a policy analysis framework that combines different analytical approaches to gain new insights about the practices of civic engagement and active citizenship in Turkey and to study the social representation of Europe by the various policy actors involved in the research.
CENTER FOR MIGRATION RESEARCH
2015/1	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.
2015/2	Child Labor in Seasonal Migratory Agriculture-Round Table Meetings	The roundtable meetings were designed to share knowledge and experience by bringing people who conduct research on child labor in seasonal agricultural labour together with stakeholders that may be interested in the subject, and to contribute to recommendations that will make the problem more visible.
2015/3	Tarlabaşı Community Center	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.
CENTER FOR CIVIL SOCIETY STUDIES
NGO TRAINING AND RESEARCH UNIT
2014/1	Public Expenditures Monitoring Platform	With the Secretariat and Coordination of the NGO Training and Research Unit, the Public Expenditures Monitoring Platform aims to monitor the process where the taxes collected from taxpayers were spent by decisions made in the parliament about how they will be spent. It works to maintain the transparency of this proces, 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).
CENTER FOR CIVIL SOCIETY STUDIES
SOCIAL INCUBATION CENTER
2015/1	Social Incubation Center	The Social Incubation Center works as a center that provides capacity development programs for rights-based citizen initiatives and civil society organizations. The tools the center makes use of to achieve this goal ranges from office space and financial assistance to workshops,training and mentoring programs.
2015/2	Civil Society Exchange Program	The objective of this program is to empower the organizational sustainability and capacities of CSOs in Turkey and to provide an opportunity to develop innovative methods and tools to empower developing civil society in Turkey.
2015/3	Things Project	Things is a social movement that brings youth, civil society organizations, activities, and programmers, and people from different disciplines that are interested in social change and social technology, together to build network and empower eachother.
CENTER FOR CIVIL SOCIETY STUDIES
CHILD STUDIES UNIT
2015/1	Young Voices Project	Within the framework of the project different activities ranging from roundtable discussions, meetings and forums to panels and workshops on topics such as children's media, gender, disability, discrimination, and youth culture, are designed adn implemented to raise awareness about children's rights, children's participation and children's culture.
2015/2	Activities about Children's Rights for Preeschoolers	Activities from the book Compasito were adopted and implemented for preschool children.
2015/3	Youth Life Skills Sharing Project	The 12-week seminar program was open to students from the university's departments of psychology, sociology, social services, law and other similar ones. Its goal was to get the participants to implement their own projects after the seminar program.
2015/4	I have things to say: Children's Media Project	The project aimed at conducting media studies with children at three different institutions and to give the children a chance to have their voices heard. .
CENTER FOR SOCIOLOGY AND EDUCATION STUDIES
2015/1	Against Heterosexism: Educational Strategies for LGBTI Rights	In partnership with the Social Policies Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation Studies Association (SPoD), this project aims at being able to fight discrimination on the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation in educational settings. Strategies were developed with the contribution of LGBTI activists, academicians and teachers.
2015/2	Technical Support Develop Gender Equality in Education Project	A collaboration of the Turkish Ministry of Education and the British Council, this project is designed to make the principle of gender equality more commonplace in schools and to foster equality and more sensitivity towards gender in the educational system. As part of the project, 80 textbooks were examined and a report on the results was published and included in the SEÇBİR revision commission. .
2015/3	Human Rights Workshops for TEGV Volunteers	Workshops were held on the topics of discrimination and human rights for volunteers engaged in various activities with children as part of the Turkish Education Volunteers Foundation (TEGV).

FACULTIES
ENGINEERING FACULTY
2015/1	CD19, ICOS, TACI, BAFF-R Gene Mutation Research in Patients with Common Variable Immune Disease (CVID)
2015/2	Identifying Genetic Infrastructure in Primary Immune Insufficiencies through the New-Generation Editing Technique
FACULTY OF ARCHITECTURE
2015	USTA İŞİ / MASTER BEYOĞLU	The purpose of this project was to promote the relationship between the creative industries and artisan neighborhoods in Istanbul, and to enhance the visibility of the creative potentials arising from this relationship. The project aimed at reinforcing the potential of both creative actors and the artisan network, and solidifying the unique creative identity that arises from their synergy. Another part of its objective was to incorporate artisan workshops into university educational curriculum and to develop it as an intermediary educational model for vocational high school graduates.
FACULTY OF COMMUNICATIONS
2015/1	Fanus	This documentary project aimed at conducting a comparison of rural and urban life via two characters.
2015/2	Handbook for Communication and Media Relations	A Handbook for fostering sound, ethical and legal relations between the communication and media sectors.
2015/3	Professional Information File for Public Relations	The aim was to create professional information files for public relations to be used at professional information centers operated by the Turkish Employment Agency (İŞKUR).
2015/4	Living Together with Animals Training Modules for Adults and Children	Training modules to teach adults and children living in the district of Eyüp how to live in harmony with animals were developed and implemented within the scope of the project to create an animal-friendly environment.
2015/5	Social Media and Minorities Project	The project aimed at expanding the social media capacity of non-Muslim minorities.
2008-	Adım Adım/Step by Step	The project aimed at raising awareness and developing funding opportunities through sports for CSOs operating in Turkey.