Özge Sönmez - Turkey

That is a great opportinity to meet with you all through this course.

Let me introduce myself!

I am a twentyfour year old woman living in Istanbul and now working for a youth organization as a training coordinator since 2006 ( http://www.tog.org.tr/index.asp ). Before here, I was working for Greenpeace Turkey for a 'direct dialogue' fundraising project.

I am deeply interested in conflict cause I have conflict so often in my personal life and in my country.

I am also organizing trainings on conflict, conflict management and conflict resolution. For me this online course is also important to improve myself and my organization and also the people that are around me on the issue. Because youth are the most mobile people and it is not too much difficult for them to change their attitudes, it is an effective way to work with youth on conflict. They are also open to talk about the conflicts they have in Turkey.

Thanks to those trianings or other actions that are taken by any of us, or the tools we prefer to use in our daily life, are the ways to understand each of us who are having conflict for any reason.

In Turkey many many ethnic groups live. Turkish, Kurdish, Jewish, Armenian people are living in different parts of Turkey. Sometimes conflicts take place in Turkey not only between different ethnic groups but also between the same etnic groups.

That is one of my motivations for this online training and another one is my personal interest on the issue.

Özge Sönmez