Dear UmAy Friends and Supporters,

We hope you’re having a good summer and that global warming is not affecting you directly.  We would like to briefly capture below the latest from our small corners of the world called UmAy Home. In May, we had the honor of hosting one of our supporters from San Francisco who made it all the way to Turkey and to UmAy and spent a full day. It was a lovely time, constructive conversation and a nice walk by the lakeshore. 

This short visit also reminded us of the challenges of resuming our hosting events after a long break as much as the pleasures of it. We immediately made a list of urgent maintenance that are needed for the house before the real summer hits and our summer  activities begin. Sevilya has been dealing with the demanding tasks, the workers, and more; but very soon, we’ll be ready to host people across the world with a much improved house. Sincere thanks go to the ones who spend the time, labor on them, and who sponsor this maintenance and renewal work.

On June 08th, we zoom-hosted Dr Zeinab Farokhi from University of Toronto-Mississauga (Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies), who presented the highlights of her most recent research “From Rememberance to Resistance: Innovative EDI Initiatives in Grassroots Organizations in Canada.”  EDI stands for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion. It was a truly inspirational and innovative talk. Farokhi’s PhD thesis entitled Digital Islamophobia: A Comparison of Right-Wing Extremist Groups in Canada, the United States, and India is accessible online. Due to UmAy’s focus and priorities, we chose to discuss EDI initiatives in grassroots’ work over Islamophobia. Special thanks goes to Esra Kazanbas who connected us to Zeinab. You may remember Esra from her successful presentation of the UmAy Initiative in Oslo in 2020. She continues her PhD at University of Toronto (Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies).

“In mid-June, UmAy hosted two female earthquake survivors from Antakya, providing them with the gift of a safe and sound place to rest. It was hard to hear that the dire conditions have not improved significantly in Hatay even after 1.5 years. The lack of services in education and healthcare, along with economic difficulties, greatly impacts the lives of people in the region. Both our guests, Nurcan and Seher, live in containers set up next to their former homes. Nurcan works in education at an institution that prepares children for high school and university exams. She dreams of turning one of the containers into a classroom to provide a psychosocial support area for young people by inviting various experts.

During Nurcan’s visit, we shared ideas about how to refine this concept, and her preferences were on designing courses that integrate art and ecology. At her request, Sevilya explained to Nurcan the steps to turn this idea into a project and showed her the project writing steps, such as defining project goals, structuring an outline, and developing a plan. While she has good connections in Antakya, the resources are still limited, and she was uncertain about how to implement such a project. We exchanged many ideas. She explained the challenges faced by the students who come to their institution and believes that such a classroom would be beneficial for them.”

We are in preparation of further counseling services for the earthquake survivors in Hatay with experts in different fields. We want to be fully ready with a team and projects before any funding becomes available. More on this effort and our redirecting UmAy’s focus on counseling and therapy of different écoles (including equine assisted therapy) for 2025 will be shared in September.

Due to several  unforeseen circumstances, some unfilled promises of the local authorities and other nuisances, our successful nature-school that was designed and offered by Sevilya with  selected assistant volunteers to the earthquake survivor children had to be postponed until some unknown date, most probably September 2024. In the meantime, we are hoping to welcome several scholars and volunteers from Australia and the United States over the summer and will be gladly reporting back to you in September. Feel free to reach us anytime with comments and questions at umayhomespace@gmail.com

Have a fulfilling and healthy rest of the summer!

UmAy Team

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