In today’s world, countries fall into three groups: undeveloped, developing and developed countries. In undeveloped countries, the governments or political structures oversee all of the institutions that handle the needs of the citizens such as health, education and security. On the other hand, in developed countries, we see that private organizations share aforementioned responsibilities of caring for its citizens. For instance, in Turkey, governmental institutions mostly provide education, health and security but others such as manufacturing, entertainment are provided by the private organizations. Apart from this, in the developed countries we see the rise of the third kind of organizations: non-governmental organizations (NGOs).
A non-governmental organization can be defined as a nonprofit group or association organized outside of institutionalized political structures and whose goal is to realize particular social objectives (such as environmental protection) or to serve particular constituencies. Developed countries already grasped the importance of them and are aware of how they can assist governments for better services. On the other hand, Turkey, as a developing country, has only started to realize this. The number of NGOs is around 10,000 and if it is compared to developed countries (in the US, this number is two millions, for instance), there is a long way to go in this area.
Community Volunteers Foundation (CVF) is one of these NGOs that exist in Turkey. It was founded in 2002 by a group of university students from different universities in Turkey under the sponsorship of the grown-up volunteers. CVF aims to realization of the peace in Turkish society through the efforts of the youth. While attaining this aim, it also enables the changes in the society in the good direction, improves the social awareness and self-esteem of the youth people and transforms their energies to the good of common benefit instead of wasting it.
Today, CVF has local branches in 65 universities (out of 76 universities in Turkey). It reaches more than 3500 volunteers of university students and they carry more than 150 sustainable social projects that target different social problems and aims changes in the current status quo. Since all of these volunteers come from different backgrounds, the CVF has some principles that unites them all. The first one is impartiality which means that everyone understands the differences of others and respects for them. Secondly, all of the decisions in the projects are taken through participatory democracy. All of the activities in these projects can be observed by anyone and questioned for their purposes within the context of third principle: transparency and accountability. CVF has only one prohibition. It does not allow any political sentiments in their projects (though each individual can have his own political thoughts) in the name of their forth principle: no politics.
The branch of CVF in Bilkent University was founded by five undergraduate students in 2003. Today, it has more than 70 volunteers who work for four different projects. In the first project, ÜPDP (Support to University Personnel Project), they help children of the non-academic staff of the university, and support their education in the middle schools. In the second one, SLP (Street Lamb Project), they help for those children that have to work but also continue their education in the primary schools. Third project, BEP (Computer Training Project) aims to spread computer use among the high-school students.
The forth is GBP (Youth Look Project) which is carried out one of the high schools in undeveloped districts of Ankara in each year. The project has three aspects. First, social and cultural activities are organized for the students in order to improve their social and cultural skills. Secondly, by providing trainings in teamwork, mutual relationships, public speaking, the project aims personal development of the students. Finally, perhaps the most important one, students come up with their own social projects that target the problems in their local environment. For instance, in previous years, one of these projects was opening a library in their school. Another example was giving computer courses to those in the institution of abandoned children. The success of GBP in previous years has inspired many other university branches of CVF and it drew the attention of the ministry of National Education (MEB).
Last year, CVF and MEB signed a protocol that has similar aims that GBP has. According to this protocol, a pilot project program is initiated in different high schools in different cities of Turkey within the collaboration of the local CVF branches. If the pilot ones succeed, the project will start in all of the high schools in Turkey next year. Nowadays, volunteers from 25 different branches of CVF work hard for their projects to be successful, if so, they know that the steps they take today will lead nation-wide change and difference in the society. What a cause worth of hard work!
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