Establishing “Humanitarian Values and Dreams without Barriers Club” in 2014-2015 Academic Year, our students continue improving their projects during 2015-2016 Academic Year.
On Thursday, 22.10.2015, Selim Eraydın, the “Best Buddies Turkey” program coordinator came our school to present the program; therefore the Marmarian volunteers took the first step for the project.
Best Buddies, in its 5th year and operating in 52 countries, aims providing friendship between the individuals with intellectual disabilities and the healthy individuals mutually and on equal footing. The non-profit and non-governmental organization has an international structure with 800.000 volunteers. The founder of the organization Anthony Kennedy Shriver, the nephew of John F. Kennedy, one of the presidents of USA initiated the project USA Georgetown University in 1989. Best Buddies has operated in Turkey since 2010 under the supervision of United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and under the roof of Alternatif Yaşam Derneği (AYDER). There have been buddies over 300 until now within the project participated by 10 schools and 100 parents for 4 years. Gözde Atasoy, the prime-time newscaster in a National TV channel supports the project as the ‘Friendship Ambassador’ in Turkey. In the project Cindy Crawford and Romero Britto are also the Global Friendship Ambassador.
To apply the project visit www.bestbuddiesturkey.org and request the application form. The matching is performed as a result of face-to-face meetings. Now there are 1000 persons registered to the volunteer list of the organization.