Happy Youth and Sport Day in Ankara!

Our volunteers and interns at System and Generation participated in the Atakültür Festivali (Atacultural Festival), which has organised and held by the Etimesgut Municipality this Saturday to celebrate the special day of Atatürk, Youth, and Sport. To mark this day, people from different organisations, associations, and sectors were invited to join the festival and enjoy traditional Turkish dances, music, clothing, food, and art, as well as to explore the creative work of others which was showcased at the many different stands at the festival site. 

Our volunteers were also in action during the whole day! The Turkish-speaking promoted the work of System and Generation at our stand, from where they welcomed bypassers, informed them, and handed out flyers, booklets, and merchandise. Festival visitors also had the chance to try out the award-winning board game, "Our Journey", which has been developed by S&G through a former proejct and was showcased at the stand. During the day, we had many interesting talks with people who came by and were eager to learn more about our volunteers and their work.  

Our whole team enjoyed the day and the cozy atmosphere at the festival site. They tried out the different Turkish foods, including freshly-made gözleme, and took part in the traditional dances in front of the stage. They also visited the other stands that were booming with hand-crafted art, jewlery, bags, clothes, and many other things. In the end, each volunteer dipped their hand in yellow and green painting to put their own personal hand-mark on a huge collage, imaging a naked tree; soon after the tree was no longer naked, but instead all covered with green and yellow leaves made up by hands of diffferent ages, bodies, nationalities and cultures. 

We would like to thank the organisors behind this great event and invite our readers to watch our video from the day: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1FB4bKNpVC/?mibextid=xfxF2i