Art Activities
We believe that art enriches our lives in many ways. However, do we realize that access to art and cultural activities are accepted as fundamental rights of children in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (article 27) and Convention on the Rights of the Children (article 27,29 and 31) and how being involved in artistic and cultural activities positively influence children’s emotional and cognitive development? It has been documented that children coming from disadvantaged backgrounds and low-income households especially benefit from participating in art related activities and programs. A research study conducted on children from ‘risky’ environments in USA shows that involvement in artistic and cultural activities decreases the percentage of dropping off from high school by one fifth and double the rate of college graduation*. Unfortunately, the situation in our country is also not very pleasant. In 2013 researchers asked 800 children aged 6-11, all of them students at the public schools from metropolitan Istanbul area about how they spend their spare time. 73% have never visited a museum or exhibition, 49% have never been to a theater, and 48% have never been to the cinema to see a film. These children spend most of their time watching TV at home(*). As expected, the percentage of children actively engaged in artistic and creative activities is much less. 19 % in upper socio-economic segment, 7% in the middle, and 1% in the lower segment. These figures showed us clearly that there is a lot to be done to make art accessible and enjoyable to children from all parts of the society either by encouraging them in performing arts themselves or by introducing them to cultural events and actual artists and performers. We try to build as many bridges as we can by supporting cultural and artistic activities.
Paintings/ Photography/ Arts&Crafts

In 2021 we organized a personal exhibition,
as for the pandemics it was a digital exhibition.
Artists, our supporters, and friends donate their works for our anniversary exhibitions, and courtesy of them the income from these exhibitions goes to our special ‘Artists’ Funds’. This scholarship is specifically assigned to female Medical School students; in 2021-2022, five Medical School students and one Nursing school student received financial aid from this fund.
In 2019 we opened our first exhibition with the works of the children participating in a photography workshop during summer school in Balat. Children experienced the gallery scene, exhibited their artwork, and bonded with new people through our organization.
Konserler, gösteriler ve öğrenci orkestraları
In 2017 our musician friend Hande Akkan and her students donated the revenues of their concert in Pera Museum to our association and this donation provided the funds for our sustainability and climate change workshop in Bilecik, Gölpazarı.
Once again, they made another donation in 2019 with the revenues of their concert at Unique Hall; this time ‘music for music’. A music room and an orchestra were built in Ağrı, Diyadin KaraMolla Middle School with this generous donation.
Cüneyt Cebenoyan çocuk ve sinema buluşmaları
We started our cinema meetings with children in 2018 sponsored by Logo Yazılım by taking 500 children to see a movie; most of these children had never been to the cinema hall before. As part of our summer school programs in 2018 and 2019 children watched films chosen by film critic Cüneyt Cebenoyan and participated in activities and film discussion seminars. Unfortunately, Cüneyt Cebenoyan passed in a traffic accident in 2019. A fund raised in his memory by friends and our institutional supporters made it possible for us to keep on introducing cinema as an artistic and cultural activity to our children. The first of these meetings was in Sultanbeyli on February 5, 2020, where 500 children watched Hayao Miyazaki’s Ponyo, the Little Mermaid. İstanbul Büyükşehir Belediyesi and Bir Film were the co- sponsors of the event, and for 80% of the children coming from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds, it was the first time that they had seen a film on a cinema screen.
During the pandemic we had to give a mandatory break for our cinema meetings, however we took the opportunity to start a film library by purchasing the screening rights of two internationally acclaimed films for children and dubbed them in Turkish. Rocca Changes the World by Katja Benrath, and Too Far Away by Sarah Winkenstette are touring the festivals in various cities and are also screened in İstanbul Belediyesi Mahalle Evleri.
* Data: Erken Çocukluktan Gençliğe: Sanatla Büyümek report. Feyza Çorapçıoğlu