Programme & action: ERASMUS+, Key Action 1: training course
Venue: Van, Turkey
Dates: 10-17 March 2015
Participants: Tomáš Marek, Tomáš Drottner, Veronika Svobodová
Participating countries:Poland, Macedonia, Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Italy, Croatia, United Kingdom, Romania and Turkey.
Project report:
This training took place in Van, eastern city of Turkey, which is only up to one hundred kilometres far from Syria, Iraq, Iran and Armenia. Despite a possible fear of war nearby and after a few words of reassurance from the organizers, we embarked on our trip to this Asian city. The organizers came to pick us up at a small airport in Van and the hotel we stayed and had all the sessions in was comfortable and the hotel service was always there to help us, make a tea for us or provide a second lunch or dinner.
The topic of the training was Gender Balance on Youth Projects and as it turned out, the place and other circumstances were spot on the topic. The population of the city is influenced by all the cultures around and the rights of women are very often limited. We learned more about the situation of women and the Kurds in and outside Turkey. We got a great opportunity to talk to people, and women in particular, who actually face the situation of oppressed human rights.
29 people from Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Macedonia, Romania Turkey and the United Kingdom came to learn about and raise the issue of human rights and we all were very much interested in and struck by the uneasy situation of women living in certain places of the world.
The organizers arranged a trip to Van Lake, which is a lake situated at an altitude of 1,640 metres and is surrounded by astonishing mountains under a snow cap. On the way, we stopped at a Cat house that is home for species of cat that has eyes of different colours and is the only cat that likes swimming. A boat took us to an island called akdamar, in the middle of which we found a church and a monastery. At the end of this great experience, we had a snow in front of our hotel despite the temperature was plus eight degrees.
Tomáš Marek
