Dilara Demirtaşoğlu

Advocacy for All

What do you want to change in this life? Advocacy is perhaps one of the key points that can help us in the issues we want to change in this life. Advocacy is a term in which we emphasize change in order to support a purpose in areas such as politics, health, rights and education, to ensure that another person supports it, and to draw attention to the issue. At the same time advocacy is all the work carried out in order to achieve one of the purposes of speaking, representing, acting on behalf of herself/himself or a group of individuals, achieving or protecting a certain goal.

People advocate for equality, fairness and the benefit of society in whatever area they want change in the country in which they live. Nevertheless, change does not happen immediately, time is needed for change to occur. Advocacy also takes time and it has a lot of work and elements in advocacy. It takes time for the issues we defend to come to a conclusion or to be resolved. During this process, you plan what to do, and you meet with decision-makers. We demand a change in policies. This also takes time. Besides this long process, it is also important not to remain silent during the process for advocacy. To be able to make a voice for something, to stand side by side for situations that we want to change, to create awareness about the issue in the society and to make the subject you defend become the center of attention brings the issue you defend one step forward.

In order to fulfill its advocacy purpose, communities and organizations organize campaigns. Campaigns aim not only for policy change but also for attitude change. In this context, communities or individuals campaign for advocacy on any issue for humans, animals. One of these campaigns is the Jubilee 2000 Campaign. In this advocacy context, the center of the campaign is people-oriented and the debts erase campaign. It was created for the campaign to erase the foreign debt of the poor countries because the communities were disturbed at the summit in Cologne that the promise of 100 billion dollars of foreign debt of the world's poorest 40 countries was not kept, so a campaign was launched to flood the world leaders with messages via the Internet. The advocacy here is completely human-focused and a campaign of people who want a certain system to change.

Another campaign is to take a step against torture. It was started in 2000 by Amnesty International in more than twenty countries. The theme of the campaign is torture. Despite many international conventions on the subject, torture and ill-treatment are used in many countries to obtain information, punish and pressure society. Therefore, a campaign against torture was launched and positive results were obtained. The actions initiated through the website www.stoptorture.org created within the campaign helped many victims to escape from torture.

Another campaign is 46664. Mandela started this campaign. During his twenty-seven years of prison life, Mandela was called inmate number 46664. Calling by number is a strategy used by the apartheid regime to humiliate opponents. Mandela named this number, which has a great meaning for him, for the campaign he launched in 2002 with the message "Give me a minute of your life to stop AIDS." The aim of the campaign is to create a world free of HIV / AIDS. Raising awareness on HIV / AIDS, drawing attention to this problem, ensuring the determination of appropriate policies to overcome the problem. This campaign has had an extremely successful impact all over the world with the support of celebrities. Concerts were organized and enlightening speeches were made on HIV / AIDS.

When You Volunteer Everyone Wins, and You too

Volunteering is not exploitation of free labor. Volunteering is individuals who spontaneously undertake to do something in their community without expecting any reward or benefit. Well, have you ever thought about what kind of contribution even a small act of yours can make to you, someone else, the environment or an animal?

Kamilla Sultanova, speaker at the Tedx talk I watched titled Volunteering: empowering others, empowering yourself, said that volunteering can be a way to build ourselves. When I thought of a few volunteering jobs I did myself, I realized that there was actually a component that helped me build my identity. The concept of volunteering also helps us to understand ourselves and find a purpose for our lives. With volunteering, we not only touch the lives of others or benefit them, but also contribute to our own building and development. In the speech, it was mentioned that volunteering is not only a nice thing but also a necessary thing. Volunteering is necessary for all of us because when you volunteer passionately and willingly for something, everyone wins. Volunteering is a very popular concept these times, but sometimes people use volunteering for different purposes. We should not look at the popularity of this concept and act on it in the same way. If we want to volunteer, we must have passion and intention for a situation.

Volunteering about something contributes more to making our voices louder and raising awareness. At the same time, volunteering can enable us to stand together for a single purpose despite your differences in a common area. Regardless of the place of residence, educational background, gender and race, you walk the same path for the same purpose without expecting any allowance for a single purpose. On the other hand, Speaker Kamilla Sultanova said that nowadays young people need to take initiative. It can be difficult to know who we are, or we may not know what we want or where to make a difference. However, everyone volunteers even if they are small can change something. I believe that we, especially young people, can raise awareness with the volunteering work we do in every field. We have to take action for this.

In my life, I have been volunteering even if it is a small one. My first volunteering job was thanks to my teacher. We used to collect the garbage found in the school in certain groups every week. Apart from that, I and my cousins went to the animal shelter several times together. In that shelter, we cleaned the containers where the animals eat and the areas where they live. At the same time, we put food in each. Although these are all small jobs, they mean a lot to me. This is all part of my identity. Components that make me like this now.

Good Is Good for All of us

Corporate social responsibility is a form of international business self-regulation that aims to contribute to the social goals of a charitable, activist or philanthropic nature by participating in or supporting volunteering or ethically-oriented practices. Keeping social responsibility at the forefront is a pioneer in acting in a good way in their business as well as taking into account more ethical issues, and businesses can make progress in this way.

In her Tedx speech titled The Era of Corporate Social Responsibility is Ending, speaker Rachel Hutchisson said that corporate social responsibility is now replaced by human social responsibility. The important thing here is what we care about as human beings. We may care about the company or corporation, but we should not throw humanity into a corner. In her speech, Rachel Hutchisson gave several reasons why corporation is a problem. One of them is that corporation is limiting. Whether it's a small business or a big business, good may not be good for everyone. However, this is wrong. Good should be good for all. We are all individuals living in society. However, if corporation does not take our interests under responsibility, I do not think that the brand can move forward very well if it ignores us. The company's purpose and profit may be important, but both people and communities are important. That's why we need to put people in the center. As a member of the community, we may be exposed to hate crime, but a corporate socially responsible company that cares about people can ensure that we are not exposed to this, so we can be in a better ethical situation.

People can bring a new view to life and a new purpose to the organization. In this context, it is also important to ensure the balance between human and community. It is also important in getting cues from people. Understanding what they care about and acting accordingly can take corporation one step further. Speaker Rachel Hutchisson said in his speech that their good story is your social good story. When you are such an organization, people come to you anyway. That's why we have to keep humanity at the center, both for ethics, social responsibility, and for your brand because the common point of everything is human. Without humanity, everything would not be quite right.

Encouraging mental wellness, providing financial security and supporting small businesses are important components in corporate social responsibility awareness. There is a greater need for this support, especially when we consider the COVID-19 period. Trendyol (trendyol is a brand that includes many organizations that enables online shopping) is one of the few organizations with social responsibility awareness. During the epidemic period, it has had many human and community-oriented support and projects. It provided a total of 80 million TL in marketing, training and financing support to tradesmen and SMEs whose businesses were adversely affected by the pandemic, and announced that it hosts an online festival organized to support the Tohum Autism Foundation. In this context, being human and community-oriented and caring about the people as well as their own interests will help to carry the brand further.

Change Is Possible with Social Movement

Social movement; it is seen as a common role player in society, which includes different forms of regulation, and strives to accelerate, prevent or reverse social change with different mobilization. Social movement is to stand against a group of people who hold a power and want to keep society moving in the good direction. As long as individuals are aware, they can create change with social movement.

The documentary called Crip Camp that I watched enabled the hippies to socialize by bringing the disabled individuals together in the camp called Jened, to have an awareness conscious among themselves, and later this formation became the beginning of the disability rights movement. The fact that the disabled people who come to this camp can move away from the people and the environment who exclude them and express their own thoughts and ideas freely and socialize with the people present, actually provides an awareness environment where the disabled can seek a right. In this documentary, not only are they talking about what happened in the camp or their daily life, but also their protest and hunger actions, a movement that will come together to seek justice and right for themselves. I think the fact that the interviews of the people there by intervening in the documentary also made the film very solid. The disabled people here come together and want social change in order to be equal with this movement and to be accepted as an individual.

There were many places that impressed me, especially in this documentary. One of these parts was the part where you can't strive for something you don't know exists. Before coming to this camp, disabled people did not know that a different life is possible for them. However, getting together in this camp created a change in them as a group. Another part that affected was that the disabled individual went to the hospital, but the doctor did not notice that disabled individual had gonorrhea, so doctor took the intact appendix. The doctor does not think that a disabled person can have a private life here, because she/he already has a disability and cannot have a life. The creation of this awareness in this camp and their desire to create a change was a step towards stopping the absence of all these disability rights. Later, the adoption of the disability rights laws in the United States actually ensured the awareness of a consciousness all over the world and created a social change in the society with this disability movement. Getting this right to disability was not so easy as we saw it in the documentary. People here have experienced hunger for days, and what happened has made a sound. Their opposition to a power provided a social change to achieve their own rights. The point reached by starting from a camp has been a means of formation of power, of a movement. It has created awareness in disabled individuals.

Louder voice

Do you think youth activism is just a protest? I think youth activism is more than a protest. Young people are the ones who can make the biggest voice when they participate in a community or social engagement whenever they want. When they believe in a situation or an issue, they can make a huge difference and also while they can easily adapt to these changes, they want to do things that benefit everyone.

Different countries have very different problems. Nowadays, we are aware of everything that is happening through new current media such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Thanks to this new media, a lot of information is easily spread, and it also ensures that we are aware of it quickly. Is it possible to do youth activism just outside? Actually, the new media did not only enable us to access information. At the same time, applications such as twitter are one of the most important tools for young people to have their voices heard. Especially nowadays it is quite possible to see this kind of thing. For the sake of what they believe in, young people make their voices heard in such applications with a louder voice in many issues. and more and more young people who want to stand up to these injustices are joining this trend. This makes it easy and fast to even turn into a global voice.

In his Tedx talk titled Moving Youth Towards Action and Activism, speaker Sam Stevens said that adults see children as just playing games on the computer. Contrary to the thoughts of adults, I think that young people now have an awareness of all kinds of issues and take action accordingly. We do not only play games on the computer, we can also seek rights with these computers, and we can also make a sound against injustice. In addition to these, unlike adults I observe that young people are more actively participating in society in issues such as injustice, pursuit of fundamental rights, climate change and inequality. I think one of the examples that can be given for this subject is Greta. Greta is 18 years old and a young activist fighting for climate change. Greta is now known in almost every country. This is an example of how effective young people are in actually hearing their voices.