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1. Fostering equality and young people involvement through cultural activities

2. Combating discrimination and poverty through cultural activities

Fostering equality and young people involvement through cultural activities

With a view to mitigate discrimination and poverty by means of cultural activities, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism formulates policies for enhancing everyone’s access to and involvement in culture with an integrated and inclusive approach. In formulating such policies, projects are developed and implemented to ensure that particularly disabled and elderly citizens, women, children and young people are to the full extent included in such services. Based on this understanding, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism carries out the following efforts to ensure that cultural access is provided to people of any age and from any segment:

1. Museum card, libraries serving disabled people as well, making of cultural centers widespread, mobile libraries and applications such as e-book, free art events are the products of new cultural policies for enhancing cultural access and inclusion.

2. Children below 18 years of age and elderly citizens above 65 years of age can visit the museums and archaeological sites of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism free of charge.

3. Android Mobile Guide Application, which has been developed to give information on the Historical Area of Gallipoli and is accessible to everyone, has many language options and contains various visual and audio materials. 

4. The buildings that provide library services are rearranged with the understanding “non-disabled library” to ensure easier access of disabled and disadvantaged citizens.

5. The “Speaking Library Center for the Visually Impaired”, established to overcome physical barriers and facilitate access to information, is available in the National Library. As part of the National Library services, since the launch of the new website in 2015, 5 books are uploaded to the "Talking Library" system every Friday after undergoing checks and adjustments and made available to members. In 2022, 260 books were narrated with 5 books being uploaded each week after technical processing and corrections to the "Talking Library" website and provided services to visually impaired users. Additionally, 50 audio books at the Izmir Atatürk Provincial Public Library and 90 audio books at the Antalya Tekelioğlu Provincial Public Library were made available in 2022. 

6. 20 electronic databases in different areas including art, economics, medicine, history, etc. have been available in the National Library since 2006 in order to facilitate academic studies and enable access to sources of information. Using these databases, researchers can freely access 13 million electronic materials consisting of 10 million articles and 3 million e-books, e-newspapers, e-journals, academic theses, artistic visuals and documents.

7. In an effort to enhance access to and participation in opera and ballet, free shows are organized in domestic tours and festivals, disabled citizens are provided with free tickets upon request, educational activities are carried out at schools, talented children in children’s homes are provided with the opportunity to receive music education in children choir and ballet courses and watch shows free of charge.

8. More than 20,000 artists came together with 33 million people through over 4,000 activities including concerts, talks, opera and ballet performances, theater shows, exhibitions and children's events at 7 festivals in 2022.

9. In order to enable disabled citizens to watch theater plays, all stages have been made disabled-friendly with all necessary arrangements, and approximately 16,000 disabled citizens could watch plays free of charge in a season. Furthermore, war veterans and relatives of martyrs can go to plays free of charge. 

10. The access of disabled citizens to cinema is provided by voiced description of supported feature-length movies.

11. Yunus Emre Institute carries out culture and art activities aimed at all young people without discrimination of language, religion and race, and ensures that they get involved in such activities.

The Ankara Copyright Specialized Library, established under the General Directorate of Copyright houses numerous domestic and foreign publications in the fields of copyright, intellectual property and creative industries and operates as a branch of the Ankara Adnan Ötüken Provincial Public Library. Through the link “http://koha.ekutuphane.gov.tr/”, users can perform catalog searches by selecting the title of  "Ankara Copyright Specialized Library" and using  "Title of Work" or other search options and can learn whether a desired work is available in the library. Although the library does not offer a book lending service, individuals can benefit from the works during working hours by scheduling an appointment in advance.

Combating discrimination and poverty through cultural activities

In the Youth Centres within the body of the Ministry of Youth and Sports, projects aim at binding young people from any section through various cultural activities and education. With the artistic and cultural activities organised, it is aimed to turn the youth that faces the risk of social exclusion into an equal part of the social body. Language teaching and cultural integration activities are carried out for the Syrians that are under temporary protection in the youth centers in Turkey.

Within the framework of the “Social Cohesion and Youth Participation Project” signed between Turkey Office of the United Nations International Children Emergency Fund and the Ministry of Youth and Sports, social cohesion project is carried out in 25 provinces where a considerable population of Syrians live. As of December 2022, 1.824.186 people have benefited from the project. The number of people participating in Turkish language training is 24.152, and the number of children benefiting from protection services is 88.062. 

One-week social cohesion-themed youth camps are organized to accelerate the integration of Turkish and temporarily protected young people. In these camps, Turkish and temporarily protected young people are accommodated in the same rooms and are given the opportunity to organize activities jointly. Within this framework, camps were held in 7 sessions between January 22 and April 11, 2022. Participants were engaged in artistic activities led by our camp leaders. 

A total of 704 Roma young people were hosted in youth camps of Ministry of Youth and Sports between 27-30 May 2022, in order to ensure that Roma people had a good time and social inclusion in a different environment.