2024 Award "Best Practice in Citizen Participation"

The region where our project is implemented is Osmangazi district of Bursa province. Bursa has been shaped by migration throughout history. This migration history of Bursa is also the source of the city's social, cultural and economic wealth. However, migration from Syria in recent years has a negative impact on city life. We prepared this project as an answer to the question of how we can live together with our differences in city life.

For this, we have prepared three projects targeting children and their parents from migrant groups. The common point of these three projects is that they allow different social groups to come together. The unifying element here is children. We believe that childish dreams will make the world beautiful. For this, we wanted to share that while teaching children, learning from children is also a gain. The fairy tale workshop, the robotic coding workshop and the “Design your park” project are three projects that support each other.

These projects were based on participation. In particular, the "Design your park" project was designed for children to design a park according to their dreams. We had children design this park by introducing them to participatory methods. We witnessed that while the children were building their dreams, the adult was watching them. Although these 3 projects were centered on children, they were more profitable for adults. We have seen the power and importance of developing empathy towards migrants and interacting with communication. Children don't know discrimination, marginalization. If we don't model it for them.

We have seen that fairy tales have universally given us the message of being a good person throughout history.

These three projects have been a great example of participation, being together, dreaming and turning those dreams into reality.

• www.osmangazi.bel.tr (External link)