Therapeutic Workshop for Syrian Refugees – Ad.dar Center in Istanbul

Facts

Project: The Ad.dar Center in Istanbul, Turkey.
Reported: October 10th 2015–January 24th 2016.

Therapeutic Workshops for Syrian and Palestinian children, organized, facilitated, and overseen by the Ad.dar staff. Weekly workshops held at the Ad.dar Center in Istanbul.

The number of children grew every week and the need is so great that we added additional classes during the weekdays for young teenage girls (ages 10- 14 years). The families have expressed their gratitude many times for the workshops- many of the new children are not in school and cannot attend for varying reasons. The time at Ad.dar is a great help to the parents and the children. In early November some of the young teenage girls came to us and asked if we could give them additional classes during the week – they are not in school and they have a great desire to learn. We immediately began classes for them on Mondays and Fridays- Arabic, Turkish, English, Music and Art/Photography/Storytelling.

On average we spent 12-15 hours a week with the children in workshops and on excursions. In addition to this workshop (on Saturdays and Sundays) we held 3 hours of tutoring the children on Sundays and 4 hours of classes twice a week for the young teenage girls. The extra excursions included; a trip to the Istanbul Aquarium, a day of bowling and out for lunch, an Art workshop at The Salt Gallery designed for kids and held by Syrian and Turkish artists, a ferry ride and picnic on the Asian side, a trip to a forest with a picnic and a trip to Istanbul Modern Museum. Between 25-30 children ages 5-12 participated in all of the weekend activities. Relationships with new families were established and existing relations with parents developed, strengthening Ad.dar Center’s accountability and stimulating interest in our other outreach programs.

The funds received from Rights Now enabled our center to effectively carry out the goals of our proposed workshop. With the generous funds received for this workshop we feel that we have greatly improved our workshop in general. Ad.dar staff is better equipped and trained, our center has more tools to help with teaching, and the number of children that attend has increased. We have felt comfortable responding to the needs of the young teenage girls to add classes and to be able to provide a warm, open space and to offer hot and nutritious meals.

Ad.dar Center would like to thank the Rights Now Foundation for the opportunity to accomplish the workshop.

Watch a video from one of the workshops by Ad.dar: