Diaries 2005

P15: Male - Arm

EXPECTATION
Hello. My name is Edgar. When I received the application for Turkey, I didn’t believe. But when we all gathered and discussed all things, it interested me very much. I have always wanted to be in Turkey, to study their culture, to see beautiful cities. And I also want to get ? with Turkish young boys and girls. I hope I will have a very interesting time in Turkey.

11.08.05
Yesterday we had a very hard, but very interesting day. We had lectures with Murat Belge and Sevan Nişanyan. After dinner we went to the city and we found a disco. We had a very beautiful time in the disco. At 00:30 AM we returned to the hotel, gathered in my room and began playing the guitar and singing.

12.08.05
We had a very interesting day. After the lectures we went to St. Pierre church. It was very interesting place and the church was 2000 year old. After that we went to the water fall, but it was very small. And a tlast we had dinner in the beautiful restaurant which name I don’t remember now :) We bought some cotton scarfs. I think we had an unforgetable day yesterday.

13.08.05
Yesterday we had a very interesting but very hard day. We had an interesting discussing with Sevan Nişanyan but on the other hand we stayed in the hotel for all day. In the evening we went to the center of Antakya. We walked in the park, talked and had a very interesting discussion.

14.08.05
In Friday after breakfast we had lectures by Murat Belge and Nazan Maksudyan. After lunch we had a language course. In the evening some guys went to Vakifliköy, but we didn’t go and spent our time in the city.

15.08.05
Yesterday we had a very-very-very interesting day. After breakfast we went to Vakifliköy. We had a very interesting time because we met 94 years old man. He told us about his family and about his life. Then we went to the sea for swimming. There was a hotel there we put our things there and went to swimm. It was a really unforgetable there, because I have never seen sea before. We had dinner at the hotel and returned to Antakya. In Antakya, we went to a cafe began telling each other funny stories so we had very funny time in the cafe. When we returned to the Savon Hotel it was a wedding party there. We danced a lot and late at night went to sleep.

16.08.05
Yesterday we had very interesting day. I very much liked the lecture about peace and war journalism. Then in the evening we went to the lunaprk and had a lots of fun. Late in the evening we went to sleep.

Support to the Armenia-Turkey Normalisation Process is a programme implemented by a Consortium of eight civil society organisations from both countries with the financial assistance of the European Union under the Instrument for Stability. 

The overall objective of the programme is to promote civil society efforts towards the normalisation of relations between Turkey and Armenia and towards an open border by enhancing people-to-people contacts, expanding economic and business links, promoting cultural and educational activities and facilitating access to balanced information in both societies. 

The Consortium partners include Civilitas Foundation (CF), Eurasia Partnership Foundation (EPF), Public Journalism Club (PJC), Regional Studies Center (RSC) from Armenia; and Anadolu Kültür, the Economic Policy Research Foundation of Turkey (TEPAV), Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly (hCa), and Hrant Dink Foundation from Turkey.  The programme will include a series of activities such as media support, TV talk shows and citizen reporting to contribute to better mutual understanding.

The programme will also include travelling discussions; workshops and trainings for youth and teachers; exchange of artists, architects, and entrepreneurs; fellowship opportunities and travel support to enhance encounters and cooperation across the border. Research on business and economic opportunities; celebrity discussions about the past; and opinion exchanges of high-level former officials will also be a part of the programme. 

One of the main pillars of the Programme is inclusiveness – to engage and support new actors in the dialogue process. To this end, the Consortium created a Grant Scheme to invite individuals and civil society organisations from Armenia and Turkey - other than the Consortium members - to propose and implement their own project ideas, which will contribute to the overall objective of the Programme and multiply the shared outcomes. 

The results of all activities will be shared with the public through the trilingual website, which will serve as a networking tool featuring the overall picture of the past, current, and future developments in Armenia-Turkey dialogue initiatives. 

For further information, please contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.