Brussels Educational Program

In collaboration with my school's administration I am organizing an essay contest for students at my university in Turkey. The contest is designed to prompt new interest and ideas regarding the critical yet stagnating relationship between the European Union and Turkey. The 5 best essayists will enter a work-shop seminar to refine, edit, and ready their papers for publishing as an op-ed in a newspaper or sharing on some other public media platform. The seminar will meet once every other week for a two hour session.

In addition to the editing helps provided, during the seminar I plan to assign light readings and host discussions regarding flashpoints in the history of the relationship between the E.U. and Turkey, as well contemporary issues of debate.

To complement the seminar, the winners will travel to Brussels in late May/early June for a 5-day educational program. During their stay participants will meet with members from Turkish-E.U. centered NGO’s, professors from local universities, Turkish business leaders in the Belgium community and E.U. parliamentarians; learn more about the E.U. and the joint E.U. -Turkish commission; tour museums and the city of Belgium; and hopefully even more.

The desired outcome, in sum, is to help students obtain a more personal, nuanced, and complete understanding of the complex E.U.-Turkish partnership. The goal is to instill them a passion to apply this knowledge toward the betterment of ties between the E.U. and Turkey. Another is to place faces to names and humanize international relations between the two groups. From casual conversations with peers to future business meetings centered on E.U. – Turkey relations, this experience is intended to act as a positive guiding force throughout the course of the participants’ studies and future careers.