Mardin

Hello again,

Yesterday we arrived in Mardin - a very ancient city in the Southeast corner of Turkey. Here we will be filming the "Ipek Yolu" or "Silk Road" Women's Cooperative.

Although we are still in Turkey, it is very clear that the Mardin province has it's own blend of cultures and history. Since we are between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, we are actually in Mesopotamia - a region that we normally associate with Iraq, but which extends into Turkey, Syria, and Iran as well.

Although Turkish is the official language here, we have learned that most people speak another native language at home - either Arabic or Kurdish. Our guidebooks emphasize the peaceful and fruitful coexistence of the three major groups, Turks, Kurds, and Arabs. Through daily conversations we have found that the situation is more complex, especially for minority groups who worry about the loss of their cultures and mother-tongues.

The other striking feature of Mardin is the terrain. Below you can see the expanses of dry, flat land that stretches to the horizon where it dissapears into the haze. Mardin is a city on a hill, surrounded by tiny villages; from where we are staying it looks as if we are on the edge of the ocean, except instead of water surrounding us there is only land.

We'll be here until Sunday, and will keep posting to the blog about our filming. We hope to film the cooperative's women and children's center as well as their soap-making workshop.

Thanks to our faithful readers!

Gule Gule!
Fernando and Jill

Duzce

Merhabalar!

We write you today at the half-way point of our filming. We finished our work with the Nilufer Women's Cooperative in Duzce this week and are moving onto Mardin - a city in southeast Turkey on the Syrian border - tomorrow.

In Duzce we were happily joined by Burcu Bozkurt, our friend and translator, and thus have come away with a fuller understanding of how the Duzce cooperative was created and how it continues to affect people's lives today. We were greatly moved by the stories we heard from the women - and one man - who work tirelessly to improve the quality of life for women in Duzce.

Struck hard by the 1999 earthquakes, Duzce is still in the process of recovering from the tragic events of ten years ago. An integral part of this recovery is the work done at the Nilufer cooperative - work that runs the gamut from early-childhood education, life skills and vocational training, group microfinance, to a small, event-decoration business.

What struck us most about the Nilufer cooperative was the intensity and dedication that its members show day in and day out to ensure that the cooperative stays afloat and fulfills its mission.

For example, the cooperative hopes to raise aproximately $50,000 to build an industrial kitchen with which it could build a professional events catering business. Until then the group will continue to squeeze small profits from a tiny event decorating business. As Selma, the cooperative director told us, "Some people in Turkey make money very easily. To us, it comes only with much difficulty."

As if to prove her point, the group spent last Sunday catering three different ceremonies all over the city - a wedding, a circumcision ceremony, and an engagement party. Their day began at 5 in the morning when they met to load the lone van (which doubles as a preschool minibus and the catering business' cargo truck) and did not end until 3AM the next morning, when the clean-up finally finished. Among the last awake was a sixty-plus year-old woman, called 'grandmother' by all who know her, who was incidently the first at the cooperative the next morning to prepare the children's breakfasts. It is moments such as these that reveal to us the hardship and sense of community which coexist at the coopertive.

The Simge and Kardelen cooperatives in Izmit told us repeatedly that they had no greater ambitions than to sustain their sucessful cooperative model and create duplicates in other local neighborhoods. They seemed to feel their most immediate needs - for community, for adult education, for preschool, etc... - could be met in the space they already had.

The women of Duzce, on the other hand, frequently mentioned their nostalgia for the past and their hopes for the future. About six years ago the government sold the property on which the original Nilufer cooperative was built and forced them off the land by cutting off water and power supplies. They movd their pre-fabricated building to a new lot, where it still lies in stacks of sheet metal and beams today (pictured above).

Some final personal impressions...

Fernando - Working with the women of Duzce was a real pleasure. Each day of filming I felt great excitement at the opportunity to tell the story of their hard work and their collaborative acheivements. At the same time, I felt an enormous sense of responsibility to document their story accurately and fairly. Two main challenges are emerging in this process:

The first is the difficulty of capturing some of the most moving moments of the cooperative's work on tape. For example, the most poignant moment of last week came at 3 am when women of all ages were cleaning up tables at wedding ceremony in which most of the cooperative's white linens were ruined by rain and mud. Unfortunately for the documentary, the area in which they were working was pitch-black and none of their heroic efforts could be captured on film.

The second challenge is to strike a balance between relating the successes the cooperatives have already achieved, and telling about the hardships and challenges that they face on a daily basis. Naturally the women of Duzce and Izmit have pointed us towards their proudest moments, but I feel a responsibility to show the full story which includes tragedies, such as the 1999 Earthquake, and some dissapointments, such as the yet unfinished industrial kitchen.

Jill -Before arriving in Duzce I knew we would find a compelling story and a slew of yet unrealized dreams. Having worked in the KEDV office for several weeks in the spring, I had spoken a lot to people about the great need for funds in Duzce. The Nilufer cooperative was described to me as a once-great operation that is currently struggling to keep up its good works because of lack of resources and money.

I was not prepared, however, for Selma. The above-mentioned cooperative director would be described as a one-woman-machine, were it not for the incredibly hard-working team around her. In our brief time there Selma did the following: hosted the three of us in her home, lead all event preparations, coordinated all decoration efforts, cooked for 30+ people on a daily basis, lead a yearly community advisory board meeting, assisted in day-care services, showed us each newspaper article and photograph of the cooperative she has collected since its founding, worried about not having ironed our towels.

Selma is one of those rare people that abound in charisma, work ethic and dedication to service - and commit their lives to the harder, more arduous road less traveled. This road leads her to the cooperative door every day. It has lead her to fight, plead and work all day for the goal of a fully working industrial kitchen where local women can earn their own money and support their families.

It struck me that having a Selma changes the dynamic of a cooperative greatly. Simge and Kardelen had strong leadership as well, but the extent to which the cooperative is driven by "Selma Hoca" and the great respect the community has for her is unique to Nilufer. In the wake of the 1999 tragedy she was one of the true heros who emerged and has been internationally recognized for her great contributions. I wonder how these different leadership structures affect the sustainability of the cooperative, and hope to understand more as we review the footage from last week.

Wish us happy trails on Turkish Airways in the morning...we look forward to updating from Mardin!

All our best,

Fernando and Jill

Simge Women`s Cooperative Mural

Here are some pictures from our photoshoot of the Simge Women`s Cooperative`s mural painting day. The first woman`s cooperative in Turkey got a facelift last Saturday when a zealous group of mom`s and kids combined forces. The results: a beautiful mural, a day with friends and family, and some good old-fashioned messiness.

Izmit

Greetings! We are writing from the Simge Women's Cooperative in İzmit, Turkey. This week we have been back and forth between here and the neighboring Kardelen Women's Cooperative, just minutes away from here on an apartment -lined mountain road. From the office window we can see the city of İzmit below. It is early evening now and the mountains are casting huge shadows throughout the landscape - a mixture of pine trees and massive cement structures.

It is hard to imagine that just ten years before the cıty was leveled by a catastrophic earthquake. On August 17th, 1999 a quake reading 7.6 on the Richter scale struck İzmit, killing over 20,000 people.

At the time, most women were housewives wıth no jobs outside their homes. Losing community members and fearing another disaster, many became isolated and afraid to leave their houses. At the same time, however, women were among the greatest contributers in rebuilding their communities in the wake of this tragedy. The pervasive feeling of instability and the great need for leadership allowed women to take on roles that before would have been looked upon unfavorably by the local society.

Indeed, it was a group of brave and inovative women that recognized that those who had lost loved ones and homes were experiencing psychological trauma. They knew they would need more than new buildings to restore their communities; they would need to create a culture of healing and support, and a space where women could come together and begin to move forward. The first women and children's cooperative in Turkey was built by a team of such women leaders alongside KEDV (Kadın Emeğini Değerlendirme Vakfı), the Foundation for the Support of Women's Work in Turkey.

The Simge Women, Environment, Culture and Enterprise Cooperative began wıth little means and few programs. Its only material assets were a modest, pre-fabrıcated building and the land it was placed on.

Today, this site houses a comprehensive array of programs and services that support the empowerment of women and their children. These include an early-chıldhood education program; leadership, financial, and parenting trainings for women; and a microfinancing cooperative group. The aforementioned Kardelen Cooperative offers a similar set of programs at its site. We have learned this week that in fact the greatest benefit of these centers is the warm and supportive community they provide to the women in their communities.

This week we have been lucky enough to fılm many of the activities of the cooperatives. We have filmed pre-school children painting the walls of their school, women dancing at a lake-side barbecue, and a women's micro-finance meeting. We have interviewed a dozen or so women and been witness to their amazing stories of recovery, inovation, and sheer will.

Aside from that we have had many afternoons of coffee and chatter, and many evenings of good meals and singing. We have been welcomed into their homes and been consistantly overfed. Fernando has tried to help out with dishes several times only to be swept out of the kitchen by three or four sets of hands - "Ayip!" they shout, shame! The extent to which we have been treated as honored visiters and welcome friends has overwhelmed us.

We look forward to our next visit to Düzce, another cooperative in the earthquake region, next week. We will be accompanied by our friend and able translator Burcu - Jill will be happy for the break from her ever inadequate if well-received translations!

Pictures to come soon - we have a great photo shoot of some mother-child finger painting that will be posted as soon as we have access to wi-fi.


Until then, all the best from your cooperative journeying friends,

Fernando and Jill