VOLUNTEER, MAKE AN IMPACT!
Community Volunteers Foundation (CVF) was founded in December 2002 by the leadership of youth and the guidance of adults, to yield peace, corporation and change in the society. Within this framework, the young Community Volunteers are organized as clubs, communities and groups in their respective universities, and they are implementing "sustainable social responsibility projects" based on the needs they have determined.
Within the first six months of 2008, the Community Volunteers have implemented 437 regional and national social responsibility projects with its 17.432 young and 500 adult volunteers from all around Turkey, and they continue mobilizing domestic resources, and having the locals participate in these projects. The active youth of the Community Volunteers in 76 universities and 88 organizations have provided various services to 165.055 people only within the first 6 months of 2008. Additionally, CVF has commissioned four Youth Service Centers in İstanbul, Samsun and Van, along with three Local Coordination Centers in Ankara, Diyarbakir and Sivas. Other than these, CVF is providing scholarships to the university students in need. Starting from June 2008, 498 young Community Volunteers have benefited from the Community Volunteers Youth Scholarships.
After this opening about CVF, we wanted to provide the readers of Turcommunique a closer look at CVF, and therefore interviewed Yusuf GUVENC, the president of CVF.
TURCommunique: Mr. Guvenc, first could you please introduce yourself to us?
I have worked at Garanti Bank for more than 16 years. I was assigned in various areas like treasury, and information management in Turkey and abroad. After being a top-level manager in an industrial establishment, I've started as the president of CVF in April 2005.
TURCommunique: Could you tell us a little about the foundation of CVF?
In the year of 2002, the youth and adults from different platforms got together to discuss what sort of a structure was necessary in order to establish a new civil movement lead by youth. The first Youth Council was organized at Kahramanmaras Sutcu Imam University with the participation of the youth in order to clarify the vision of the movement, and evaluate the points of view of the youth. Before the official initiation of the foundation, university students from several different cities and schools met in Eskisehir upon a letter from an elementary school teacher in the Körhasan Village of Eskişehir, and they repaired the school, as well as providing for the school's other needs. After this first project, named as CVF IMPACT, the Community Volunteers Foundations was officially founded in December 29, 2002.
TURCommunique: How do you communicate the youth who wants to work with CVF for the sake of society?
The youth of Community Volunteers organize in clubs, communities, or groups within their universities. We bring the youth who reached us through our website, mail groups, or through other channels together with the other Community Volunteer youth in other universities, and help them participate in projects. The professional Field Supervisors who are constantly in touch with these young people are coordinating this process.
TURCommunique: How do you estimate your project spendings and costs as a non-governmental organization?
The relevant law in Turkey allows associations and foundations to use 33% of their incomes for their administrative spendings. This ratio in Community Volunteers is 8%. CVF is spending 92 TL of the 100 it earns to its objectives, and 8TL of it to administrative costs. Additionally, all of CVF accounts, even though there is no legal obligation, are monitored by Mazars-Denge, an international independent monitoring institution.
TURCommunique: People from all religions, languages, ethnic backgrounds are working together side by side, and producing projects for the sake of the society. Do you also evaluate the projects once they are complete to see whether they are useful or not?
CVF's vision is to materialize social peace, solidarity, and change with the leadership of the youth. Currently we are conducting a research to reveal the integrated effects of all the projects we have actualized so far since the beginning of 2007. This research is designed by Ekrem Düzen and his team from Sabanci University as a comprehensive measurement-evaluation.
The research aims to display how well the items in the CVF's mission and mission, as well as the active citizenship, democratic participation, solidarity and change objectives are actualized.
TURCommunique: Finally, do you have any activities abroad?
One of the aspects of our 5-year plan that we have prepared at the end of 2007, was to become an international non-governmental organization. The International Relations Department we have founded specifically for this cause, is working towards our memberships in international networks, carrying the CVF model abroad, and actualizing the international projects.
Within the year of 2007, we have implemented a project in Kars with the participation of young people from Armenia and Turkey. The youth repaired a village school in the Arpaçay country of Kars. Besides this, we have actualized the International Summer Periodical Projects in Edirne, Mardin and Van with the participation of 60 young people from 37 different countries.
In 2006, CVF clubs were founded in 3 universities in Morocco, and Bangladesh. We are in contact with the youth and universities in Azerbaijan and France as well.
After the visit of the Associate Dean of Yale University, Philip Jones at CVF, we have started a cooperation where students from Yale University had internships at CVF this summer, and they participated in summer projects implemented in different cities of Turkey.
TURCommunique: This was a very pleasant chat, Mr. Yusuf. Thank you very much for your time and responding to our questions.
