Youth Work and Policies in Turkey

This paper was produced on the Istanbul Bigli University - Youth Studies Unit, as an Research paper no.3, in November,2008. 'As an effort to contribute to the process of developing youth policies, we edited a book entitled Youth Work and Policy in Turkey. As we are discussing in the book and below in the report, we argue for an approach that prioritises the ability of young people to experience the process of becoming autonomous individuals in their youth, and to take part in social life as young people. Youth policies that we have developed in light of this approach value the ability of young people to determine their own needs above and beyond what adults imagine and design for them, their ability to defend their rights pertaining to these needs, and their capacity to organise to extend the current sphere of rights available to them. The primary target audience for the book is comprised of individuals and institutions that work with youth in either a public or non-governmental setting, and those who participate or will participate in processes of developing policies about youth and related areas. In addition, the book aims to provide a means by which policy developers, youth workers and academics involved in youth studies can hear one another.