Picture Gallery: Stories with songs; women with stories

Female farmers, female actors, female journalists, female artists, female entrepreneurs and many others… Hundreds of women who came together at the Women’s Day celebrations organized by Netherlands Embassy told their own stories, listening to the songs performed by Pınar Ayhan. Hundreds of women came together yesterday evening at Çankaya Municipality Zübeyde Hanım Cultural Center on the occasion of the second “Stories With Songs; Women With Stories”, organized by Netherlands Embassy.

Netherlands Embassy’s Women’s Day celebration was designed in tune with UN’s designated theme “Think equal, build smart, innovate for change” for March 8. Hundreds of women invitees from the following organizations participated in the celebrations: Female Engineers and Architects Association, Flying Broom, Ankara Bar Poppy Center, Association for the Research of Women’s Social Life, Awareness Choir: Breast Cancer, Pink Life LGBTT Solidarity Association, Turkish University Women Association, Bards Association, Fight with Cancer Association, Ahbap Platform, Association for Supporting Contemporary Life, Ankara Public Relations Association, Social Democracy Association, Özge-Association, Turkey Training and Protection of Mentally Handicapped Children Foundation.

Pınar Aydın left her mark on the evening with her songs. Dutch Ambassador to Turkey and one of the organizers of the evening, Marjanne de Kwaasteniet remarked in her speech “I am delighted to have you here as women aware of gender equality. This year United Nations decided on the theme of “Think equal, build smart, innovate for change” for March 8. If gender equality can be established in the workplace, academia and politics, everything will be better. We need to struggle for an equal place in every field.”

TALENT SCOUT TÜLAY DEMİR OKTAY Talent scout Tülay Demir Oktay, who was chosen one of the most influential Turks in the last 50 years in the Netherlands, told her own story in the evening: “I was born in a small village in the Netherlands, where also I grew up, however, I have been living in Turkey for the last five years. I shuttle back and forth between Turkey and the Netherlands. I would deem myself as the happiest person in the world if I could improve the Turco-Dutch relations as a citizen independent of governments and states. I have been working to this end, especially in the field of education, which is the key to everything. In education we always focus on the intelligence of children but ignore their talents. My starting point was that we should pay attention to their talents. I have talent-scouting patent in Turkey and a company working in this field. I also established a foundation to create opportunities for gifted children. Every individual has some potential of some kind. What we need to do is to become aware of that potential. Now parents want to orient their children in accordance with the talents they possess. There is now a consciousness about talents. Children become happy and successful after realizing their own talents anyway.”

AN OUTCRY FROM WAR: RAVDA NUR CUMA Another guest of the evening was Ravda Nur Cuma, who gave voice to women who survived the war by means of Ravda Nur Der, the association she established… Cuma said: “I was a 13-year old girl living in Idlib. I went t school, leading a normal life. I was the fifth of nine siblings. I did not know what war was. But suddenly we found ourselves in the middle of the war. I left behind my beloved horse and room. Out of the blue I was in a tent. I kept asking my elders ‘When will we get back home?’ And they kept saying ‘within a week or two.’ Eight years passed since then. First I learnt Turkish, then English. Now there was a different life. Winters were cold, summers hot. I want to sleep comfortably at nights when there are heavy showers of rain there is the risk of our tent collapsing over us, which I cannot forget. I want to sleep but I cannot forget my classmates who were bombed. Now there was nothing left to do….”

RAVDA NUR CUMA: “When I turned 14 my parents wanted to marry me off. I refused because I was a child, I could not give birth to a child at such a young age. They told me to keep quite, I spoke. They told me to sit down, I stood up. They told me not to go to school, I went to school, jumping out of the window and I waited at the school gate. I never gave up. At the age of 15 I visited all the tents in the camp to persuade people to send their children to school. They said rather nasty things about me; I also had a war when I got back home. But I continued to talk. I stopped journalists in the camp, talking to them about the real situation. I asked them to do something for education here. The families suffer heavily from economic difficulties. Therefore, they took girls away from school, they wanted either to employ or marry them. I therefore talked a lot about the importance of education.”

RAVDA NUR CUMA: “I went to university, studying political sciences. I went to the World Summit in 2015, faced the world leaders and asked them to ‘stop the war in my country.’ I know things will not get better simply by means of my talking; but these leaders talk and talk while we people pay heavy prices for the war there. I made speeches at the UN and EU. I established Ravda Nur Association. To my mind, everybody can do something if I have managed to do something. I am addressing to my sisters in Turkey: You can do it too. At least you have your own homes where you can go in the evening and enjoy a meal hot. Never give up. If I am standing in front of you, that means you are much more powerful and there is not anything that a women cannot do. My last words: We were not born as refugees and we are not to blame for the war in our homeland.”

“WOMEN EXIST IN THE NAME ONLY!” The writers and performers of the show “Women Exist In the Name Only!” Özge Uzun, Ebru Tüay and Banu Özkan also took to the stage to tell their stories. The presenter of the show Özge Uzun explained their performance, which was based on their own experiences, as follows: “I am a well-known figure on TV screens. I am famous for being a mother and my long legs. I ran away from my parents’ house in Ankara at the age of 18 and came to Istanbul. From that day onwards I have had an eventful life, working at TV channels, presenting and reporting. At 28 I married for the second time. I went to the hospital to give birth. I have 4 diopters myopia and when I opened my eyes in the delivery room I saw a dark object in front of me. I expected it to cry, just like those babies I saw in films. But it did not. Doctors and nurses realized that something was not quit right and began buzzing about. I am the mother of an unusual child. My son Dağhan is a miracle. Now he is 11 and suffers from an unprecedented disease and we are trying to make his disease appear in the medical literature. This woman you see on TV screens has a totally different life struggle of her own; likewise, women have an unknown, hard lives behind their visible lives.”

HABLEMİTOĞLU: WHAT TO DO WITH WOMEN’S STUDIES IN THE ACADEMIA Council of Higher Education (YÖK), which prohibited gender issue in the academia, was another issue on women’s agenda. Addressing the women in the evening, Prof. Dr. Şengül Hablemitoğlu said: “On this day, March 8, gender equality has been expelled from the universities. I cannot still get over it. What are going to do with the studies on gender equality in the days to come? This is a point from which we cannot retreat. No one can disregard such a just demand.”

A LOVER OF LIVING MUSEUMS: SEVDA DEMİR Sevda Demir, creator of Beypazarı’s living museums, talked about her experiences of the first open-air museums in Turkey: “I studied ethnology at university. I remember studying open-air museums in the world in a book. During my Master’s Program, this idea occurred to me. I corresponded with the directors of some of the open-air museums in the world. Since I could not afford visiting these museums, the directors sent me CDs. Mansur Yavaş, the Mayor of Beypazarı, supported us greatly in our efforts. Our aim was to exhibit Anatolian architectural tradition. We have built four completely traditional houses characteristic of Southeastern, Central Anatolia, Mediterranean and Black Sea regions. Anatolia, where we live, is at the intersection of civilizations. We sustain our traditions in the living museums.”

FEMALE FARMERS FROM THE NETHERLANDS AND TURKEY CAME TOGETHER The eye opener of the evening was female farmers from the Netherlands and Turkey. Female farmers from the Netherlands, who came to Ankara upon the invitation of Netherlands Embassy, paid a visit the previous day to the female farmers in Yeşilyurt village, who had established their cooperative. After making flatbread and pancakes together, the women later came together in the activity “Stories With Songs; Women With Stories” organized by Netherlands Embassy where they talked about their own experiences. The speeches of female Dutch farmers Helma and Karolien were introduced by Erik Weststrate, the undersecretary of Netherlands Embassy. Talking about the day they enjoyed with the female Turkish farmers, the Dutch farmers said, “It is great to see female farmers in Turkey getting stronger.”

WOMEN SET UP COOPERATIVE AND DID NOT ALLOW MEN After graduating from the department of Agricultural Engineering at Ahi Evran University, Gülcan Biner went back to her village and with her mother Şirin Biner she organized women and founded Yeşilyurt Agricultural Development Cooperative. Şirin Biner related the story of the foundation of the cooperative: “At first there was a cooperative run by men and we decided to establish a women’s cooperative. Upon hearing this, the men offered to become partners. We refused the offer, thinking this is absurd. Their plan was to get a share from our products. We established our own cooperative. In the beginning we did not have any money. We started off with a sack of flour; we made noodles and tarhana soup and sold them. With the money we earned we bought tomatoes and pepper, this time we produced menemen (scrambled eggs with tomato and pepper). With our income from the sale of menemen, we bought ingredients for jam. We made and sold jam. Now we have a wider product range.”

At the end of the evening, the members of Awareness Choir: Breast Cancer accompanied Pınar Ayhan. The Embassy to Ankara, Marjanne de Kwaasteniet, diplomats from the Netherlands Embassy, the female Dutch farmers, female farmers from Ankara, female journalists, female actors, hundreds of female invitees to the celebration joined the halay dance. Women with Songs all participated in the halay, dancing to the rhythm of the songs in their lives on the eve of March 8, Women’s Day.