The first of two TCF Teacher Study Tour groups will begin in Istanbul on June 28. During the summer, 48 teachers from 12 chapters of the World Affairs Councils of America-WACA will travel to numerous historical and cultural sites throughout Turkey, including Istanbul, Çanakkale, Bursa, Kuşadası, Konya, and Ankara. The teachers were selected from among several hundreds of participants of the TCF-WACA Teacher Workshops on Turkey, which were organized by the participating councils with support from a TCF major grant. Part of the TCF-WACA Spotlight on Turkey national educational program, the selected teachers will join the over 520 American teachers who have traveled to Turkey on the TCF Teacher Study Tours since 2007.

TCF has provided a major grant to ILKYAR Foundation, a Turkish NGO that provides programs and aid to schools in rural areas of Turkey. The TCF grant will support the 2015 ILKYAR Math & Science Summer Camp, a 9-day program for 8th grade students and their teachers from regional boarding schools in Turkey. The camp includes courses in math and science, hands-on research and art projects, as well as tours to important cultural and historical sites in Ankara. The camp takes place in Istanbul on the campus of Bosphorus University, and over 1,400 students thus far have participated in the camps.

TCF has provided a major grant to DÜNYA, a musicians' collective based in Boston, dedicated to contemporary presentations of Turkish musical traditions. The grant will underwrite the production of a jazz orchestra album by Dr. Mehmet Ali Sanlıkol (TCF Fellow 2013), a critically acclaimed Turkish jazz musician and composer.

Dr. Recep Karadağ of the TCF Cultural Preservation and Natural Dyes Laboratory-DATU participated in the 15th World Textile Conference in Bucharest, Romania on June 10-12. He gave a presentation entitled “Sustainability and awareness with natural dyes in textiles.”

YESAM will collaborate with NAR Restaurant for a seminar and Ramadan dinner event on June 30. The seminar will be presented by journalist and food culture researcher Nedim Atilla, highlighting the old traditions of Ramadan and included a showing of “Karagöz Hacivat,” a traditional Turkish shadow puppet theater. Past YESAM lectures are periodically uploaded for online viewing on the TCF Video Gallery.

Turkish cooking traditions are highlighted every month with the YESAM Recipe of the Month, which currently features “Güllaç,” a popular Ramadan dessert from the Ottoman period that is made from wheat starch wafers soaked in milk syrup with rose water.

Meichen Waxer (TCF Cultural Exchange Fellow-2015), an MAA student at Emily Carr University of Art and Design and interdisciplinary artist, attended the Residency Program at Halka Art Project from May 5 - June 7 to participate in the realization of a collaborative art project.

Enver Uraz Kıvaner (TCF Cultural Exchange Fellow-2015), a jazz musician and winner of the solo instrumental category as well as one of the five finalists of the most popular Made in New York Jazz Competition, performed in the Gala Concert at BMCC Tribeca Performing Arts Center in New York City on June 27.

Heidi K Brandow, a painter, is attending the Residency Program at Halka Art Project from June 8 - July 19 to realize her art project "defining: home."

In June, the TCF Istanbul office hosted briefings for students and faculty from several American universities who were visiting Turkey with support from the Turkish Coalition of America-TCA Study Tour Grant Program. The visiting groups came from the University of Colorado and the University of Minnesota-Duluth.