In the last three years, Turkey has been experiencing a complicated time with a variety of challenges related to living together in diversity. This diversity has been affected by a great number of individuals coming from neighbouring areas in conflict such as Syria, Iraq, Iran, Somalia, Afghanistan etc. Turkey has been actively trying to help them feel safe and comfortable by opening camps and providing necessary life conditions, simplifying procedures for residence permit etc.

Amongst those individuals who live with local citizens, there still is a huge gap in communication and feelings such as xenophobia, nationalism and intolerant behaviour, fear and conflicts which are still predominant.

The initiative aimed to promote tolerance, breaking of stereotypes, promoting mutual respect between neighbours which represents their own national and other cultures by educational, informational and promotional activities amongst them with this project. Visual arts as we used video based on real-life stories of those individuals and their life in a foreign country describes how important the Dialogue Between Neighbours – DBN has a vital role for social inclusion. 

To involve young people to dialogue with their neighbours who are coming from different cultures, religions, and social backgrounds preparing a practical record of their communication by using the method of Participatory Video. DBN has been implemented with a video contest (10 Participatory Videos produced by young people and 5 of them were selected) and festival in Antalya on 5 – 7 August 2016, Eskisehir on 26 – 27 August 2016 and in Ankara – 29 – 30 August 2016, Turkey with the participation of more than 600 people.