Held twice a year during the first weeks of each school term, this training program aims to raise awareness and understanding of Cultural Heritage, so that the local, traditional and national values that form the shared identity of communities and of the world can be protected, sustained and passed on to future generations. To learn more about the program, which offers cultural heritage training to teachers who are in constant contact with students in order to build this awareness and understanding, click here.
The Association works to document, preserve and keep alive the tangible and intangible cultural heritage of Beykoz Kundura and Beykoz in particular, and of Türkiye in general. Through projects developed with its own resources or through national and international collaborations, it aims to contribute to the sustainability of cultural heritage.
All projects of the Kundura Hafıza Archive and Research Center are carried out under the umbrella of the Kundura Hafıza Cultural Heritage Preservation Association. Many social responsibility projects are also run by the Association.
The Association prioritizes education in its work and aims to help spread awareness of preservation, the first step toward preservation. To this end, under protocols signed with the Ministry of National Education, free exhibition tours as well as workshops focused on museum studies and cultural heritage are organized for students from primary school through high school.
While training programs for teachers support the integration of cultural heritage into the curriculum, workshops and working groups run jointly with universities build collaborations at the academic level. The Volunteer Program for university students encourages young people to take an active part in the process. All of these educational activities are also supported by publications, with the aim of reaching wider audiences.
The Association also provides scholarships to a number of university students every year and, through the Ministry of National Education, supports various schools with repairs and equipment. In addition, archaeological excavations and restoration projects are among the areas the Association supports.
In accordance with Article 5 of the Bylaws of the Kundura Hafıza Cultural Heritage Preservation Association, membership in the Association is possible only upon the recommendation of the founding members.
2024
Cultural Heritage at My School
Oral History Workshops
Focusing on the connections between individual memory and social and collective memory, which is also the starting point of Kundura Hafıza, this workshop program is designed around the fields of study of participants from different areas of expertise, such as teachers and master’s and doctoral students. Oral history, which began as a historical method, is today a method and approach frequently used not only in the discipline of history but also in many other fields such as folklore, anthropology, sociology, literature and political science. After focusing on the history and scope of the emergence of oral history as a discipline, the program discusses topics such as the framework within which oral history studies are conducted, their methodology and their reliability as scientific data, and oral history work carried out across different media in Türkiye.
Industrial Heritage Expert Guide Program
Organized for students of university Tourism, Hospitality and Guiding departments, this training program aims to raise awareness among students who will work professionally as guides in the tourism sector in the future about industrial heritage and how to carry it into the future, to help them specialize in industrial heritage, and to make these future professionals aware of what can be done to protect and promote Türkiye’s industrial heritage.
Supporting Anatolia’s Cultural Heritage
Kundura Hafıza Cultural Heritage Preservation Association places special importance on supporting projects that aim to protect our country’s cultural assets. One of these, the Kayalıpınar (Samuha) Excavation, located within the boundaries of the village of Kayalıpınar in Sivas, has been carried out since 2021 under the direction of Assoc. Prof. Dr. Çiğdem Maner, a faculty member at Koç University. The Kayalıpınar archaeological site (the Hittite city of Samuha), the second Hittite city uncovered in Sivas after the Hittite city of Sarissa, is one of five centers in Anatolia to have yielded tablets written in Assyrian and Hittite. An Archaeology Festival for children and young people is also held in Kayalıpınar.
Interdisciplinary Children’s Workshops
Our workshops are inspired by the Kundura’s Memory: A World Fit into a Factory exhibition and the Kundura Hafıza archive. We invite everyone to experience different themes and concepts in the interdisciplinary field that forms part of Kundura Hafıza’s multilayered structure, and to take part in workshops prepared with original content. By focusing on making and creativity, we aim for participants from all walks of life to carry this dialogue forward. For detailed information about the workshops, click here.
Cultural Heritage Summer School
Designed for children aged 14–17, this 6-day summer school aims to open up a space where, through interactive lessons, hands-on workshops and projects the children design with their own creativity, they can understand, internalize, protect and carry into the future both tangible and intangible cultural heritage. The sessions, which explore tangible and intangible cultural heritage through many disciplines such as History, Literature, Archaeology, Urban Planning, Architecture and Climate Science, are led by academics and educators who are experts in their fields.
In the program, which approaches cultural heritage through a different discipline each day, participants first learn the general theoretical framework of disciplines such as Archaeology, Architecture, History, Landscape and Literature, and then have the opportunity to put these theories into practice in the workshops. At the end of each day, they use their creativity to realize their own designs, drawing on the theoretical and practical knowledge and skills they have gained.
Students who complete all the sessions and workshops of the 6-day program receive a “Certificate of Participation” from the Kundura Hafıza Cultural Heritage Preservation Association, and students who earn the Certificate become Kundura Hafıza “Cultural Heritage Ambassadors.” Through continued work with these students during the school year, they pass on the knowledge and skills, experiences and observations they gained during the summer camp to their peers at their own schools and at other primary schools, continually expanding the program’s reach.