What We Do?
Dom Research Workshop
Dom Research Workshop
Kırkayak Kültür- Dom Studies Program carries out efforts to improve the socio-economic conditions of Dom communities and other relevant groups living in Middle East countries, improve education, housing, health services, and employment for these communities, prevent discrimination, improve human rights, and provide them with access to social and public services. The main objective of the center is to conduct social, cultural, and artistic activities in order to ensure Dom groups become active members of the society in counties where they settle, participate in and contribute to economic, social, cultural, civil, and political life of these countries, develop socially and culturally as these communities are socially and culturally risky and disadvantaged communities, and ensure cohesion in the society within the framework of coexistence, dialogue, and solidarity to fight against prejudices and discrimination. In this context, the center creates strategies and action plans, and aims to conduct cultural studies in countries where Dom communities and other relevant groups live in cooperation with public institutions and civil society organizations.
The association runs culture and arts workshops in neighborhoods with Dom populations -one of the three communities forming the Gypsy population in the world- to support the education and school attendance of children in Turkey. Researchers at the association have been conducting academic and non-academic researchers, field visits and a mapping study on such needs of Dom groups in the Middle East. Currently, they are carrying a study on the living conditions and problems of Syrian Dom communities in Jordan and Lebanon, together with possible solutions. Kırkayak Kültür has been actively informing NGOs and public institutions, and accelerating bureaucratic procedures and processes in order to secure the necessary permits for the tent sites established by the Dom groups in the region and to establish a network among local and international organizations supporting the rights of Dom communities. Under this program, Kırkayak Kültür implemented a protection project for Dom communities to access their rights through involvement of registration process as well as published reports for their access to basic human rights; The Dom: The Other Asylum Seekers from Syria Report, Encouraging Integration and Social Cohesion of Syrian Dom Immigrants Proposal for a Regional Social Inclusion Strategy Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan, “Being educated is a distant dream to us.” Dom and Abdal Children’s Education in Turkey: The Cases of Gaziantep and Şanlıurfa.