The Dreams Academy in Kas, Antalya, is working hard to bring socially disadvantaged people and the disabled back to life.
Imagine a village ... Everything in this village is designed to bring together the people with disabilities and socially disadvantaged people who are somehow being pushed out of society and working life or struggling with economic inability, attracting dozens of people in cities every day. Here is working with civil society have the power of Turkey's most acclaimed Dreams Academy, one of the project is precisely to sustain this utopia.
What is Dreams Academy?
In 2008, Dreams Academy, founded by the collaboration of UNDP (United Nations Development Program), Ministry of Development and Vodafone Turkey Foundation AYDER (Alternative Life Association) is a project based on voluntarily working. The mission of the project is to integrate disabled and socially disadvantaged young people into the new life. The basic philosophy is to show that these young people can find space in society as working and producing individuals, rather than collecting donations and aid. The Dreams Academy performs this purpose through social and artistic activities.
The Dreams Academy, which has restructured a 14-acre land in the magnificent Cukurbag Village of Antalya's Kas district and organized it according to the needs of disadvantaged individuals, continues to serve in Kas since 2014. Dreams Academy managers stating that they get the largest voluntary support from citizens coming for vacation also express that any volunteers of all ages are very welcomed with the motto of "another holiday is possible".
Dreams Academy realizes its dreams with "production"
Almost every activity carried in the concepts of Social Enterprise Park, Ecological Life and Dreams Academy, is based on "production". In other words, the disadvantaged individuals who stay in the campus of the Dreams Academy in Kas can participate in any free of charge workshop they wish and develop their skills in certain periods during the camp. Dreams Academy expects its participants to to participate in the workshops according to their ability and physical status, such as rhythm, music, painting, dance, DJ, photography, cooking, yoga, personal development, drama, sign language and design. Of course, these workshops are given by experts who come voluntarily to the Dreams Academy.
Since the foundation, The Dreams Academy has introduced more than 4000 disadvantaged young people to new areas through workshops and has given them new competencies through these workshops. The Dreams Academy believes that these competencies should be a "golden bracelet" that will be transformed into economic output. So, for example, many young people studying pastry at the Dreams Academy kitchen today have the opportunity to work in a catering affiliate that is set up under the association. The Social Inclusion Band, on the other hand, founded by young people who study rhythm and music at the academy, regularly goes on stage in Istanbul. In the D-Film subsidiary established within the academy, film and photography-trained handicapped people take weddings, special days, commercial photographs and videos. The income from all these affiliates we are talking about makes it possible to pay the salaries and insurance premiums of disadvantaged individuals who labor.
To volunteer at the Dreams Academy
