BTF Friends of PAYDA Giving Circle
Friends of PAYDA Giving Circle” is an affinity community established between Bridge to Turkey Fund (BTF) and PAYDA that seeks to strengthen each other’s network of philanthropic resources for the benefit of girls’ education in Turkey. The result is an increase of opportunities for raising funds to empower girls through the gift of education.
“Friends of PAYDA Giving Circle” focuses on supporting girls who face life adversities that interrupt their education. Every year the community provides education scholarships to eligible applicants throughout Turkey. Scholarships are funded by BTF network of donors in the US and are entrusted to PAYDA in the form of BTF Empowerment Scholarships. PAYDA awards the scholarship funds to eligible applicants and oversees overall progress in the ground over the period of award.
Let’s now meet Payda’s President Bora Tokyay and learn more about PAYDA and its projects.
Q. What is PAYDA?
PAYDA is an independent, non-governmental organization, which was founded on 2010. It aspires to contribute to Turkey’s progress towards a more progressive and contemporary society through establishment of common denominators for better interaction between citizens from different backgrounds. One of Payda’s core focus areas is girls’ education.
PAYDA does not rely on any large donor. Our philanthropic work is sustained purely on the basis of a ‘grassroots’ model and by transparently channeling the donations directly to the projects.
Q. What is PAYDA’s most active project?
PAYDA with STUDENTS PROJECT (PÖB) is our most active project that is currently led by PAYDA. Under this project, which is actively supported by BTF, we award education scholarships to girls who have academic potential but experience difficulties in continuing their education due to financial hardships. Our scholarships aim to keep the girls in school until they complete at least high school while encouraging them to pursue a path to post-secondary education from a university.
Q. Why are PAYDA scholarships unique?
Many similar projects are being carried out by various organizations in Turkey. We believe that what makes PÖB scholarships unique is our model of establishing a one-to-one interaction with the students and their families. This is realized through PAYDA Student Supervisors.
Q. How many Scholarships have been provided by PAYDA to date?
At present, a total of 220 scholarships have been awarded to students from various grade levels. Hundred twenty-two (122) have been awarded to students from the City of Mardin and surrounding villages, fifty (50) to students from Batman, eighteen (18) to students from Istanbul, sixteen (16) to students from Nevşehir, nine (9) to students from Diyarbakır and five (5) to students from Sakarya. From this total, fourteen (14) students have already graduated from a university and forty-one (41) are currently enrolled at a university.
Q. How are PAYDA Scholarships awarded and monitored?
PÖB scholarships are open to all applicants from grade levels 3 to 11. We work in close collaboration with local schools so that many applicants are referred to us by their schools and teachers.
Most of our applicants come from large families with usually uneducated parents consisting of of about 8–10 children and with extremely limited financial means. Quite often, the father is unemployed or passed away, or simply has abandoned the family. We strive to select applicants from a range of schools that include vocational schools as well as the best available schools in the area, such as the Science or Anadolu high schools.
We assess each applicant on the basis of academic potential and family’s financial means and make a final determination after an interview with the applicant and the family. Once an applicant is accepted, and provided that all eligibility requirements are fulfilled on a continued basis, scholarship funds continue until graduation is attained from a post-secondary institution. If the student does not enroll into a university, scholarship funds are discontinued. However, some of our students take a gap year after finishing high school, usually to get prepared for university entrance exams. For those students, scholarship funds are frozen during the gap year and reactivated again once they have earned entrance to a university.
Scholars must continue to show academic potential and effort and should regularly communicate with their appointed PAYDA supervisor, who monitors their progress and mentors them.
Q. How does the supervision/mentorship program work?
As I pointed out previously, interaction and mentorship form the backbone of the PÖB Project. Each PAYDA student is appointed a supervisor, who regularly communicates with the student and monitors the student’s academic, intellectual and psychological development very closely. Student Supervisors, who are PAYDA volunteers, receive regular training and stay with the same student until graduation has been attained from a university.
Although more students are accepted for PÖB scholarships every year, we leverage growth with our volunteer resources. As you know, there are many local and international volunteers, who have their heart in education, especially in girls’ education. Individual donors can become Student Supervisors if they want to, but we are also proud to have many young professionals, who are not donors but seek to work as Student Supervisors.
Q. How much are the scholarships?
Scholarships are awarded annually. Scholarships for junior and high school students for the 2019–2020 school year are valued at 1,750 TL. The annual amount of 1,750 TL (USD 308 at the exchange rate as of September 2019), which is very modest by all standards, often enables us to change the course of a student’s life!
We also help our students, who are determined to have university education, by providing extra help (tutors, textbooks, etc.) to prepare them for university entrance exams. Each student in grades 8, 11 or 12 receives an extra 300 TL a year for entrance exam textbooks. We work in collaboration with local bookstores to provide the textbooks.
Students, who pass entrance exams and enroll at a university, receive a total annual scholarship of 3,000 TL (USD 527 at the exchange rate as of September 2019) for the 2019–2020 school year.
PAYDA transfers scholarship funds directly to the student’s account in 10 monthly installments from September to July. For junior and high school students, a stipend of 150 TL is allocated for textbooks and stationary purchase. This stipend is given to each student in September, at the beginning of the school year.
If we can find volunteers and donors and as much as our budget allows, we try to give a laptop to each university student during their first year. BTF sponsored 2 laptops for university students.
Q. Are there any other projects besides scholarships?
We assist schools as much as we can. For example, we build “General Reading Rooms” or “English Rooms”, where students can study, rest or have access to books to read. These projects are usually financed by individual, institutional donors or and/or other more privileged schools and equipped with donated books. This year we were able to build such rooms for the Mardin Science High School and Aziz Sancar Anadolu High School. These reading rooms have become delightful spaces and are much favored by the students. Under PAYDA’s guidance, 1,500 books were collected and donated to the Mardin Science High School.
Our project “Schools Talk” is a weekly program that connects students from different regions of Turkey online. It was created by the English departments of the paired schools the students attend to. Students converse in English over the internet about current topics. The project aims to enable and motivate young people to practice English with their peers in a friendly and comfortable environment through video conferencing as well as giving them an opportunity to develop new friendships. The project is continuously evaluated by the English teachers of the paired schools and at the end of the year students get a chance to put a fun show in English “English Day” to which parents and classmates are welcome to attend.
At present, the paired schools are Robert College in Istanbul and Mardin Science High School in Mardin, Uskudar American High School in Istanbul and Aziz Sancar Anadolu High School in Mardin, and Robert College in Istanbul and Avanos Anadolu High School in Nevsehir. The program allows students from Robert College and Uskudar American to receive community service credits and the students from the schools of Mardin and Nevsehir the opportunity to get English conversation credits. Moreover, it allows the participant students to know each other and share valuable individual experiences from different perspectives and backgrounds. In the future, we plan to extend this program to benefit more schools from privileged and underprivileged areas.
“The Circle of Hope Project” is another program that brings young people from different backgrounds together in the Afacan Youth Camp in Yeni Şakran, north of İzmir. Young people meet and spend time together at the camp, get to know each other more closely, expand their personal perspectives and have an opportunity to overcome their prejudices. Students attend the camp for one-week in July. PAYDA students from grade levels 9 to 11 join the camp from different schools in Mardin, Diyarbakır, Batman, Nevşehir and İstanbul. The emphasis is teaching our students the importance of the culture of integration and tolerance through sharing of new experiences.
We also collect books and give them to students during our field trips. A highly popular program among our students! We have a minimum two field trips to get our children and their families together during the school year. Field trips typically include a formal meeting, visits to our students’ schools and families and an entertaining/educational activity. Activities include visits to historical sites, picnics, educational films and guest speakers, especially successful individuals from the same area, who can be role models to our students. We try to introduce different professional careers to our students by showing relevant visual material or through guest speakers, who are usually young professionals.
“PAYDA in Museum Project” helps our students to develop their creativity, critical thinking and aesthetic concern. In collaboration with local museums, we take PAYDA students and their parents to see new art exhibitions. The visits usually start with a presentation by education experts of the museum to introduce the exhibition and the artist. Then, we visit the exhibition and the museum store to see the design products inspired by the exhibition. The program ends with a workshop, where students create their own designs inspired by the exhibition under the guidance of the museum’s art instructors.
The program aims to broaden our students’ cultural vision and to support their artistic and intellectual development by familiarizing them and their families with art education and museums. Also, a very important goal of this program is to provide our students with different perspectives regarding outlooks as well as creating awareness of community and museum volunteering.
Q. What would you like to say BTF Donors?
First and foremost, I want to thank BTF donors for giving us the opportunity to introduce PAYDA and our projects and a very special thank you for supporting PÖB! With your invaluable support, we are currently providing scholarships to 4 students! Additionally, we have been able to provide laptops to 2 university students.
We hope that you can continue supporting our work with girls’ education and the work we do under the different PAYDA programs benefiting our students. BTF donors can support our programs by donating through the “Friends of PAYDA Giving Circle” community platform. You can also make specific donations by indicating to us where to allocate your individual donation, such as books, laptops, clothing or stationary items. For example, you may opt to donate to cover the cost of a number of laptops that will be needed to support students seeking a university degree.
You can support us by visiting the following web pages.
https://www.bridgetoturkiye.org/friends-of-payda/
www.paydaplatformu.org
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2252758675009971/?source_id=6037008290
On behalf of PAYDA and the students we support, again thank you very much for support!
TOGETHER, WE CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE
AND YOU CAN HELP!
Bridge to Türkiye Fund (BTF) is a US based, volunteer run, charitable non-profit, 501(c)(3) organization. Contributions made to BTF are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by IRS. BTF’s tax identification number is 58–678580.
