Global Reach: Grantee Partners

ICHILD Turkey

Context:

Turkey signed the United Nations Convention on Children’s Rights in 1989, yet many challenges remain with regards to the culture and practice of engaging children and youth in decision making processes on issues that affect their own lives. On paper, many national government and local municipal efforts are made to ‘include’, however, in practice this is not happening effectively nor is it resulting in MEANINGFUL youth engagement (MYE) MYE is a challenge for many NGOs , typically are formed and managed by adults without input of children and youth and most importantly, without a rights-based approach. 

Organization:

Founded in 2019, ICHILD aims to promote and protect children’s rights in Turkey. They use the term ‘children’ because with a rights-based approach, the UN convention (and local laws) consider individuals children until age 18; yet, ICHILD tend to work with youth 15-18 and sometimes up to 24 (in EMpower language, youth). Their core mission is to increase engagement and voice in a rights-based framework. ICHILD is based in the capital of Turkey, Ankara, which brings them closer to policy making circles, and has staff and leadership with experience. Their founding member and current GM Betul (female, 24) was actively involved in children commissions organized by the Family and Social Policy Ministry when in her teens, and founded ICHILD with other youth when she was 20. One of their foremost initiatives is a climate movement organized by youth (15-18). They are also a proud partner of UNICEF which helped ICHILD develop institutional and programmatic policies and procedures within a child-centred rights-based framework.

Current Grant:

EMpower's first grant to ICHILD will help develop a meaningful youth engagement strategy and formal youth advisory council structure with a core group of youth (15-18) that will engage more than 400 youth voices and other stakeholders. 

Primary Location: Ankara

Website: https://www.ichildforchild.org/

Funded Since: 2022