Turkish Youth Congress, some observations...

Hello, my name is Okan Dodanli and...

OKAN DODANLI

This was my first time going to the Turkish Youth Congress. This was recently last wee-kend Jan 20th - Jan 22nd. I haven't realized that I was the youngest one in the group until I entered the bus that took us to Ottawa. I was really excited when I heard the news that I was going. Hello, my name is Okan Dodanli and I am 16 years old and I am proud that I am Turkish.

The 5th Annual Turkish Youth Congress to Ottawa was really exci-ting and lots of fun. I heard this great group from my friends and family. I'm really glad that I had given a try to get into this trip. That's because I had made great friends and learned lots of things along the way. Some of the friends I made along the way were Sila Özer, Bertan Güven, İlyas Kayran, Jeyda Deyna and around 50 and more. The first day of the congress we had arrived at the hotel which was at the French side of Ottawa in other words Quebec and the Ontario border. We then went to the Turkish Ambassador's House (Rafet Akgünay). Rafet Bey is a really joyful and happy person. I have had a talk with the Ambassador myself and so did many others. That's when I met Bertan Güven, İlyas Kayran and Jeyda Deyna. Ylyas Kayran is the president of the Turkish Canadian Association at Simon Fraser University. Jeyda Deyna had created a website/blog site for our group this year and it is called Turkish Youth Canada the website is http://turkishyouthcanada.blogspot.com/ .The next day we had listened to many speeches about how we as Turkish Youth could improve and show our culture amongst ourselves. We took some notes down had lunch and dinner than me and my friends reviewed our notes and talked about it. Some of my friends went to walk around Ottawa in our free time and some others like me studied for upcoming exams.

My last day of the congress Yenal Küçüker surprised me. He is now a friend of mine. He called me up to the stage since I was the youngest one out of 200 youth at the congress. I was in front of about 200 of them. He asked me questions about myself and how I found this congress so far. Then he gave me a 4 leaf clover balloon and said "I hope this will bring you luck in your future" I then thanked him and went back to my table. I was then later in a group called inter-communication. I was in charge of keeping point form notes and power point presentation. We were discussing how we can show our Turkish culture to others in Canada without having trouble with other cultures. Instead of fighting, making other cultures feel bad or other cultures making us Turks feel bad about ourselves. We came up with a new idea instead of fighting why don't we just make group activities that included others to join and make friends with new cultures. We picked 5 main topics talked about the 5 topics and explained why they were the important ones.

Now our goal is to bring those 5 main topics into action this year. The following year we are awarded by how much we have accomplished. The person who had organized a great program like this is Banu Pamukçu. She is a loving, caring and a great person overall. I hope we have more people attending next year to our trip.

February-March 2012