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“Imagination For All, Realization For All” in Kirklareli, Turkey

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“The project “Imagination For All, Realization For All” took place in Kırklareli, Turkey between April 19 and 27. I was very happy to be a participant in this exchange aiming to familiarize the sociеty with the problems that children with physical or mental disabilities have and create better attitude, more awareness and more tolerance towards them.

The project was a great experience for a number of reasons. I will start with the total of 27 participants from the countries of Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Italy, Romania and Turkey. All of them devoted their time and effort to help the children and make this project successful and that by itself is more than respectable. Nevertheless, I was amazed by the personalities of the participants and their attitude and desire to help. We’ve managed to create a very collaborative group that approached every task and activity with professionalism and yet everything remained very friendly and enjoyable throughout the whole project. We learned a lot about each other both on personal and cultural level managing to swiftly switch between work and entertainment whenever needed.

I would also like to recognize the amazing organization by our Turkish friends who were very helpful and responsive throughout the project. They were genuine hosts who not only managed the whole project flawlessly but also made everyone feel very comfortable and valuable.

The peak of the project were the two days that we’ve spent in the schools for children with disabilities in Kirklereli. We had prepared a short program for the children including several different acts and the performance of one child song originating from each of the countries participants in the project. The main activity was the creation of special T-shirts for each child where our team helped the children visualize and draw a dream of theirs on the shirt. It all sounds very simplistic and may be even trivial but as the activities started all the eyes were full of joy and hope and every face had a smile! A certain kind of magic was flowing in the air as children were running around with butterflies, lions, footballs and guitars on their t-shirts, eating sweets and exchanging presents with us. We managed to bring happiness and hope to those little souls who were not as lucky in life and although it might have been just for a day or two, everyone felt the hope, the joy, the happiness and the love – memories that will never be forgotten. There are certain moments in life that are priceless and what we experienced in Kirklereli was definitely one of them.“

Leo, participant