We have started the “Hand to Hand with the Disabled and Socially Handicapped Youth” with our students five years ago. Our projects continues with a great energy in 2018-2019 academic year by taking part in the Best Buddies Turkey program. Our goal is to develop our projects and enrich our volunteering activities, which we have started five years ago when we established the “Undisabled Dreams” club, with social projects. We are proud to take our place in Best Buddies Turkey Program, which is an international NGO initiative of Marmara Private Education Institutions and an intermediate project that aims to enable the acceptance of the mentally and physically disabled in the society, with our volunteers again this year.

               We started our journey five years ago with the volunteering activities of six of our students, led by Elif Daşdemir. These activities took place in Düşler Akademisi (Dreams Academy), where the disabled and the socially handicapped youth are taught culture and art. While celebrating the joy of seeing how abstract ideas became tangible activities, we keep up our work with fifteen of our students. We are delighted to run this project with our sister school Mediha Turhan Tansel Special Training Application Center, in its fifth year in Marmara Private Education Institutions.

               In the fifth matching ceremony that took place in Marmara Education Institutions on Wednesday, January 1, 2019, we had a meeting dinner after our volunteer students had fun moments with their buddies. At the end of the ceremony, club advisors Melek Karahan and Damla Uluöz Memiş received the accreditation certificate from Best Buddies Turkey Program Coordinator Fidan Karaahmetoğlu for the successful implementation of Best Buddies Turkey project on behalf of Marmara Education Institutions.

               We plan to have four planned activities in 2018-2019 academic year. The first step will be visiting Mediha Turhan Tansel Special Training Application Center. During this visit, our students will be guests in their buddies’ lessons and they will spend time together.