*This article was originally written and published in July 2016 at UNICEF Voices of Youth’s former website. It has since been moved here. In my hometown we often talk about the unappreciated and underrated treasures of our country. I frequently find myself in such conversations, and the one that led me to write this post was about Göbeklitepe, a pre-historic site in Southeastern Turkey. Known to be “the oldest temple of the world”, Göbeklitepe is dated back to Pre-Pottery Neolithic A Period (c. 9600–7300 BC). The peculiarity of the Göbeklitepe site lies in that it contradicts what the studies...

"More than 300 women were killed in 2021 in Turkey" This is the kind of news that I see everywhere: from Twitter to Instagram and other social media platforms. But is it really fair to kill women for no reason? Absolutely not! Is it worth killing young women and taking their dreams from their hands? Absolutely not! But why are we doing so? Is it because women are seen as inferior to men? But who did impose this mentality that men have more privileges than women do? Do you think about what is the role of a woman in society? Maybe to take care of her children, to cook, and to be a good housewife...

Last month the photographic exhibition “Youth Lens – Dreams of the Future” opened in New York. And while exhibitions open in NYC all the time, this one is special: all the photographers are between the ages of 11 and 18. The photos in this exhibition are a selection from a wider body of photographs taken by 60 Turkish and Syrian young people living in Turkey who are part of the Youth Lens project. Launched in 2018, it aims to train 60 young Syrian refugees and Turks from Gaziantep, Istanbul, and Izmir in the language of images.

"The word power can be interpreted with both positive and negative meanings. I started creating my works by exploring the exact definition, which means to be able, and whether or not I agreed with it. Living in a reality that presents both aspects to this term, the interpretation of this word is limitless, which is also the reason behind many current conflicts. The term attracted me because of my personal interests with the problems present in the status quo, and how they essentially lead back to the same place: a race for power. But I believe that in order to really understand the term, one...