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IN THIS ISSUE: Letter from the
President ORGANIZATIONAL NEWS Advisory Council CULTURAL NEWS The Nazar Bonjuks |
| VISION To create a model
for peace and sustainable democracy in the Middle East by encouraging
the growth of Turkish civil society. MISSION To support the education system in Turkey; to strengthen Turkish nonprofit organizations; and to promote cultural exchange. |
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| Friends of Anatolia P.O. Box 20511 |
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| ORGANIZATIONAL NEWS Advisory Council
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New
members continue to honor our Advisory Council. We have now two
new people who
accepted to share their experience with us and be our mentors.
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| Volunteer Orientation
To join our growing network of active volunteers, please contact us and attend the next orientation on Sunday, August 28, 2005. Click here for details. |
We had a very nice orientation on
July 30, 2005 with our new volunteers at the San Francisco Public
Library. | ______________________ |
| Online
Volunteering
You can find our organization's name listed, however we are still working on how to best utilize this new tool. |
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| Monterey Festival
Click here for details and some photos. |
The
Monterey chapter of TAAC organized a very successful Turkish
Arts & Culture Festival in Monterey on August 6 and 7, 2005.
We participated to this wonderful event on August 7th with a
booth.| ______________________ |
| Car Donation
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We recently had a car
donation pledge by the owners of | ______________________ |
Financial Update: Over the past year we have received over $42,000 in individual donations and and additional $2,000 in pledges! Roughly we have used these donations as follows: Dibekduzu $17,000: Sarikoy $6,000: May 21 Turkish Dinner
$3,500: Community Volunteers (TOG) Fund
$1,000: Advertising $2,000: Operational Expenses $8,000: We have many exciting projects coming up, and we look forward to your continuing support! |
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| Donor Rolls from Past Events Below are the donor rolls listing those who made financial contributions to Friends of Anatolia towards different campaigns and challenge gifts. Unrestricted since July 15, 2005 Dibekduzu
- May 21 Dinner, |
| Letter from the President Dear Friends,
We are all proud that Friends of Anatolia is becoming an organization with the standards of American nonprofits and is working towards setting a good example. In this regard, transparency and building alliances are two key concepts for us. In order to establish a strong infrastructure and achieve more program goals, we need more funding and more volunteers. During the last couple of months, we have applied for a few grants and received rejection letters. The main reason for this, is that these organizations have some requirements that we do not meet yet, such as having a physical location or staff or being older than a year. It will be easier for us to access grants from foundations, companies and government once we are more settled and accomplish more projects. Your
support at this initial stage is very crucial. All of you are
entrepreneurs since you see the potential in Friends of Anatolia. Best
Regards, |
We are working very hard to grow in a fast and steady manner to
make a significant impact in this world. As a young organization,
we have accomplished quite a lot with the support of our generous
donors, devoted mentors and committed volunteers.| ________________________________ |
| SUPPORTING EDUCATION... Sarikoy Nearly Complete! Thanks to our wonderful donors, we have raised $6,039 as a result of our two week fundraising campaign for Sarikoy Elementary School.
Read about these new updates including details of fundraising results and the donor roll; press coverage in Turkey, project execution details and the latest updates on the main Sarikoy Project page. There is also press coverage in Kent Haber newspaper by Mehmet Halis Is: article in Turkish. |
We started the renovation of Sarikoy on August 1, 2005, and it
is nearly complete as of August 12, 2005. As a result, 334 students
will study in much better conditions during the upcoming school
years. | ________________________________ |
| Dibekduzu Before and After
We are currently using the remainder of our budget on providing educational supplies for the 80 students of Dibekduzu. If you would like to help us with this part, please see our wish list and contact us. |
The physical repairs of
our first school project for Dibekduzu Elementary are complete.
The before
and after photos show an impressive change in the school.
The final cost of the renovation is $9,700 which is $300 less
than the original budget, and the payments have been made. Visit
the | ________________________________ |
| STRENGTHENING NONPROFITS Phila TR Magazine
To learn more about the content of this magazine, click here (pdf). We will have a separate page for this very soon. |
Currently we are working on another
very exciting project, Philanthropy Magazine. We have just formed
a volunteer group to undertake the
responsibilities for this project. | ________________________________ |
| Our New Project: Office / Volunteer Center We are working hard and growing fast. It is time for us to move to the next level with your support.
You can contribute to this project by sponsoring a piece for two years. We are looking forward to receiving your support to realize this dream. Stay tuned, more information is coming soon... |
We have found a wonderful space on Castro Street in Mountain
View, CA which can be utilized not only as an office, but also
as a volunteer center. | ________________________________ |
| BUILDING ALLIANCES Community Volunteers (TOG)
Please read more about this and other alliances here. |
We have recently started a mutual agreement with | ________________________________ |
| Backpack Angels
They are having a campaign to raise the funds for the shipment of the backpacks between September and October, and hopefully these shipments will be received by the New Year. |
Thanks to the
leadership of Melissa Broussard, | ________________________________ |
| Your phone call is a support! Thanks to Volkan Alemdar, owner of AloLink Company, we now have a new way of supporting our projects.
When you create an account with AloLink by clicking the path below from our website, 5% of the proceeds from your phone calls to Turkey will be donated to Friends of Anatolia! |
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| Friends of Anatolia in the Media Now our efforts for improving education in Turkey are being heard by more people. Click on the links below to read about us in the media.
California Turkish Times: July 9, 2005 (English) Turk of America Magazine: June 2005 (English & Turkish) Hurriyet Newspaper: June 3, 2005 (Turkish) |
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| Friends of Anatolia Banners To show your support of Friends of Anatolia, please use our banners on your websites. If you need technical assistance, please e-mail us.
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CULTURAL
ARTICLES The
Nazar Bonjuks
Despite the fact it has no religious meaning, Turkish people believe that it absorbs bad energy coming from evil eyes and brings luck! Thus, no place of business or home is without one. |
It
originated in the old ages when a person can cast a spell
on another. As a defense, Anatolian artisans have created these
glass eyes that look straight back at the spell-caster as if
to say "I see what you're doing. Stop bothering me!"_________________________
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Mount
Nemrud
The region was declared as a National Park in 1989. The remains are on the World Heritage List of UNESCO. |
Kommagene
was a very rich region known for its wealth of minerals and ores
such as brown coal, iron, and gold. The site was constructed
by Antiochus I, who prided himself on his royalty and power.
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| Did you know that Anatolia... Is where money (metal coins) was invented by Lydians. Is where the word "cherry" originated, after the city of Giresun (ancient Cerasus). Is where two of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World are from: The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus and The Mausoleum of Halicarnassus. |
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| Dish of
the month
This dish is the most formidable obstacle to the victory of the hamburger in the Turkish fast food market. |
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| Facts about Turkish: Suffixes Turkish, like Finnish and Hungarian, is an agglutinative language. It is known for having an abundance of suffixes and it has no prefixes. There can be up to four or five suffixes attached to one word at the same time. Examples for suffixes: |
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Thanks for reading our FRIENDLY NEWS. Please share your feedback with us! |
Friends of Anatolia is a tax-exempt nonprofit organization
under section 501 (c) (3) of the Internal Revenue Code.