Pi Youth Association

Pi Youth Association is a youth association established in 2014 to enable young people in Turkey to develop knowledge, skills, positive attitudes, and behaviors. It actualizes the European Union’s decisions, Council of Europe, and the United Nations in youth. The Association also maintains its activities by considering the universal sensitivities, global principles, and principles in human rights, participation, and environmental issues. The primary mission topic of the Pi Youth Association is youth rights and problems. In addition to this, there are five more mission topics it has; volunteering hours for the spread of volunteering, civil society capacity building to support the development of other youth associations, technology-based development to support general development, healthy living for youth to spread the habit of healthy living, and analysis of social media, which is one of the most widely used communication tools of the youth.

Pi Youth Association’s target group contains all individuals and youth workers between the ages of 15-30 living in Turkey. From the target group, women, refugees, and disabled people have priority. In addition to carrying out activities to support young people’s personal development, Pi Youth Association also works on youth rights to solve the problems experienced by young people in our country. Pi Youth Association also determines its medium- and long-term strategies according to the European Youth Strategy Document and the current youth situation in our country. Since 2016, Pi Youth Association has published its annual activities and balance sheets on its website by the principles of transparency and accountability. It is also a signatory of the donor rights declaration.

Pi Youth Association’s office team consists of 12 people, including four professional employees, two part-time employees, two long-term trainees, and four office volunteers. There is also a volunteer team of local youth, with more than 100 active young people. The name of this volunteer team is Pixel Team. Pixel Team voluntarily supports all projects and activities of the Association. It consists of young people between the ages of 15-30 who regularly participate in the Association’s activities and training in the Association’s culture.

Pi Youth Association is also a member of many national and international networks. The Association is a member of; Youth Organizations Forum (GOFor), European Youth Foundation, Prisma European Network, and TechSoup Turkey. It is a member of; The Anna Lindh Foundation Euromed, Google for Nonprofits, Microsoft for Nonprofits, and AMSED Member Network. Pi Youth Association is also a signatory of the UN Global Compact. Our Association is also a Eurodesk Contact Point.

Pi Youth Association is a local and non-governmental youth organization active in national and international fields and can reach many young people. Social media accounts and the website of the Association are followed by many young. The Association has more than 25,000 followers on Facebook (2 pages both in Turkish and English).

What are the activities and experiences of the organization in the areas relevant to this project? What are the skills and/or expertise of key persons involved in this project?

Pi Youth Association has a deep understanding of the importance of gender equality and has proved itself many times on this particular subject. Pi has been carrying out multiple projects and workshops on that issue, but the organization also considers gender balance in our everyday work. This principle is applied when it comes to selecting participants for our projects and forming the volunteer team. The organization’s chairwoman Begüm İntepeler İşten plays a crucial role in the creation of this consciousness. In 2016 Pi organized a 2-days-long gender equality workshop for university students. The topics discussed during this event ranged from women’s participation in the workforce to the LGBT+ community in Turkish society. Besides, Pi Youth Association hosted a youth exchange named “Work of Man (Woman)” between the dates of 12-21 May 2017 in İzmir. It aimed to develop effective ways to create gender equality and increase opportunities for females in the area of employment. Besides, the participants addressed issues such as youth unemployment and familiarized themselves with the EU’s values and primary objectives.

Also, Pi carried out two EVS projects on the importance of equality which took place from August 2018 to July 2019. The first project, “EVS For Local Development” was aimed at local women of the Karşıyaka neighborhood and encouraged them to get involved in various educational activities, such as language courses, workshops on digital media and fitness classes. The second project, called “Improving Health Quality Awareness” focused on improving the overall quality of life by promoting healthy living. Both projects’ target groups were women with social, economic, geographical and educational disadvantages.

Furthermore, a training course called “New Media and NGOs” which took place in February 2018 focused on the topic of hate speech online. During this event the participants reflected on the urgent need for finding ways to combat it, such as creating suitable regulations. This course’s result was an educational booklet made by the participants, which provided definitions and examples of hate speech targeting people based on their race, gender, religion, sexual orientation or disabilities.

One of the organization’s most recent projects connected to inequality was “Glean” (held in August 2018 in Izmir). It focused on the role of social media in spreading racist tendencies and promoting stereotypical portrayals of certain groups of society. This youth exchange’s main goal was to raise awareness on the importance of media literacy to minimize unconscious consumption of the news and misinformation.

Here is our TEAM:

Begüm İntepeler İşten is the leader of Pi Youth Association. She has knowledge and experience in volunteer management, international work in the field of youth and the success of gender equality. She was the instructor of the Gender (In)Equality Project. She encourages participation of the female workforce and organizes meetings about LGBT+.

Muhsin Şen has knowledge and experience in the development of international partnerships. He participated in different training courses on fighting prejudice and developing empathy. He also continues to work on gender equality. He was responsible for writing and implementing the project “Gender (In)Equality”.

Seren Soydemir is a youth worker and a member of the international partnership team in PYA. She has ESC and training experiences in gender equality, stereotypes, fighting against hate speech. She continues to work in this field and helps by being a part of writing new projects.