PAPA RONCALLİ SOKAK, NO 128, ŞİŞLİ
34373 İSTANBUL/
Turkey
- Democracy and community development
- Heritage
- Human rights
- Media
- Research
- Youth and education
The Hrant Dink Foundation was established in 2007 following the assassination of Hrant Dink in order to carry on his dreams, his struggle, his language and his heart. The Hrant Dink Foundation, which defines the development of culture of dialogue, peace and empathy as the basis of all its activities, carries out distinctive projects within the framework of different programs such as ‘Culture and Arts’, ‘Education’, ‘History’, ‘Democratization and Human Rights’ and ‘Turkey-Armenia Relations’. Some of the aims and activities of the Foundation are as follows:
• To ameliorate cultural relations among the peoples of Turkey, Armenia and Europe
• To support Turkey’s democratization process and to contribute to the promotion and protection of human rights, minority rights and cultural rights
• To support efforts to write histories devoid of nationalism and racism; to encourage academic studies on violations of minority rights and human rights
• To conduct oral history studies that aim to question the official narrative and to create a collective memory
• To combat hate and discriminatory speech through documentation and awareness raising activities
• To carry out projects and activities in order to preserve and promote Armenian history and culture
• To design projects on dealing with the past that will contribute to building a healthy future
• To archive and publish articles, pictures and documents of Hrant Dink
Hrant Dink Foundation will undertake multifaceted activities in these areas, such as publishing books, creating archives, organizing summer schools, organizing film, music, visual arts, dance and literature festivals, and giving awards in memory of Hrant Dink.
The Foundation defines the development of culture of dialogue, peace and empathy as the basis of all its activities. In this light, the Foundation carries out various activities under 5 major programmes ‘Culture and Arts’, ‘Education’, ‘History’, ‘Democratisation and Human Rights’ and ‘Turkey-Armenia Relations’. Amongst others, the Foundation has been regularly working on expanding its existing projects ‘Media Watch on Hate Speech’, ‘Films about Conscience’, ‘Oral History Studies of Anatolia’, ‘Multicultural Heritage of Anatolia’, ‘Turkey-Armenia Journalists’ Dialogue Programme’, ‘Turkey-Armenia Travel Grant’, ‘Turkey-Armenia Fellowship Scheme’, ‘International Hrant Dink Award’, ‘Annual International Conferences’, and also publishing on these topics. The Foundation has taken remarkable steps to move from program based operation to division based operation. ASULIS LAB, Armenian Research Institute, Site of Memory, Turkey-Armenia Program and the International Hrant Dink Award will be the core divisions of the Hrant Dink Foundation.
Hrant Dink Foundation has established a research library specialized on Armenian Studies and minorities in Turkey within the Anarad Hığutyun Building. The Library aims to serve researchers, students and the Armenian community by providing systematic knowledge and scientific information with particular focus on Armenian culture and history. With the capacity of 20,000 volumes, and currently featuring books, periodicals, photographs, DVDs, tapes and maps, the Library and its archive will be expanded further thanks to the exclusively donated private archives and collections. With the use of Library of Congress Classification (LCC) system, the library offers a research capacity with international standards.
ASULIS LAB: ASULIS is the first social sciences laboratory in Turkey that struggles against discrimination and produces studies on discourse. ASULIS aims to conduct studies in the fields of theoretical discussion, education, media, law and politics, and aspiring to be a pioneering, innovative and interdisciplinary structure.
ARMENIAN RESEARCH INSTITUTE: Moreover, the HDF aims to establish an Armenian Research Institute in 2016. For the preparation, the project team is researching about the history, the scope and the context of Armenian Studies from past to present. To define the scope of the fields of research the project team has got into contact with different institutes both in Turkey and abroad. The Institute will function as a place for both research and production. Researchers, academics, scholars or any other interested individuals will be able to enhance their research in Armenian Studies, with an access to a resource-rich archive and library. HDF gives special importance to projects related to Cultural Heritage. Documenting, creating information about Turkey’s non-Muslim cultural heritage has been one of the priorities of the Hrant Dink Foundation and making these information accessible is important to us. Activities like field research, documentation, oral history and raising awareness about the protection and creative reuse of cultural heritage structures will continue under the roof of Armenian Research Institute.
SITE OF MEMORY: The former Agos office where Hrant Dink’s office is located will be turned into a site of memory and conscience. With a special focus on Hrant Dink, the site will be a place where Armenians’ culture and history, minority rights in Turkey, the story of Agos Newspaper will be presented from various angles.
INTERNATIONAL HRANT DINK AWARD: Since 2009, the Hrant Dink Foundation presents the International Hrant Dink Award on Hrant Dink’s birthday, September 15th, to remind those individuals, organizations and groups who give inspiration and hope to people for holding on to their struggle, work for a more liberal and fair world free from discrimination, racism and violence, take personal risks for achieving those ideals and use the language of peace that they are not alone. Each year the award is granted to two individuals, organizations or groups; one from Turkey and one from outside of Turkey.
TURKEY-ARMENIA RELATIONS PROGRAM: The Foundation strives to eliminate mental and physical borders between the two neighboring countries by promoting direct contact and cooperation. With its project coordinators in Turkey and Armenia, the Foundation continues to expand its activities for increasing people-to-people contacts, promoting cooperation of professionals, organizing exchanges for journalists and various experts, raising awareness on the impact of the sealed border.
In all of the programmes, the Foundation targets to reach out to civil society organisations, grassroots organisations, academia, media, young people and public at large. Since March 2015, the Hrant Dink Foundation continues its activities in its new venue Anarad Hığutyun Building, which used to be an Armenian school until it was closed in 2004 due to lack students. The 800 m2 building has four floors, and hosts work spaces, an archive, a library, an exhibition hall, a conference hall for seventy people, spaces for workshops, an open courtyard and a terrace. The Foundation has been organising and hosting series of workshops, conferences, film screenings at the new venue. The new venue also offers us greater opportunities to enhance our collaboration and communication with young people, academia and other civil society organisations and host joint panels, workshops or activities. Being a part of the Network will enhance cooperation and collaboration with other civil society organisations working in the fields which are similar with the foundation activities and foster awareness on cultural diversity and coexistence by organising public events.
The foundation aims to contribute development of a secure and healthy environment economically, socially and culturally, as well as individuals with democratic citizenship awareness, respecting the cultural diversity and differences. In this context, it develops programs and provides services with the aim of increasing the intercultural dialogue, ending discrimination of all kinds, improving the inter generation communication, ensuring the gender equality, improving the education and communication opportunities, social adoption of peace and reconciliation culture. Being a part of the ALF Network will allow the foundation to reach out to other people as well as civil society organisations that are working with the similar goals and organise or participate in joint activities. Moreover the foundation will also learn from the experiences of other members of the network and share the HDF’s experiences too. The network will enable us to promote our work in a range of international circles and also will provide a distinct opportunity to be aware of the work conducted in similar fields and learn from other country experiences. As we are organizing a variety of conferences, panels and workshops on regular basis, inviting experts from other countries and promoting best practices in other countries surely widen our horizons and create new avenues for cooperation.