members. The overall aim of the project has been to establish dialogue and encourage partnership projects between young people in Greece and Turkey. The preparation and designing period of the project took quite some time. There have been a lot of unforgettable meetings in Ankara, Istanbul, Izmir, Fethiye, Sakarya as well as Athens, Thessaloniki, Patra, Rodos and Nea Makri with embassies, academics, youth organisations, artists. After long discussions about the project content and method as well as contact building activities a large-scale project has been designed to be carried out in partnership with various NGOs in Greece and Turkey with the main partner being the Foundation of Lausanne Treaty Emigrants. The project received a remarkable financial support from the European Commission Representation to Turkey under the MEDA- Civil Society Development Programme with €150.000 and supported by the Greece Embassy to Turkey, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Culture and Tourism, EOT- Hellenic National Tourism Organisation, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Greece NGO Directorate, Municipalities of Sakarya, Fethiye, Sakarya and Nea Makri, Bilgi University, Middle East Technical University, University of Athens. And the magic started…with all its dynamic but tough adventures. We decided to focus on interactive and cultural events encouraging for future partnerships and using art and creation as a tool. The project’s launching event was a conference organised by AEGEE-Ankara & AEGEE-Sakarya between 20-23 March 2003 in Sakarya with the title ‘Rebuilding Communication’. A total of 80 young people from Greece and Turkey participated in the panels on NGOs and Governments, Media and NGOs as well as the workshops elaborating on the Role of Young People in TurkishGreek Civic Dialogue, The Social Effects of Natural Disasters, the Role of Education and History Writing, Public Achievement. The conference was opened by Ismail Cem former minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkey and it was the first international youth activity that took place in Sakarya. There were 6 youth organisations making their presentations to the whole participants. The event overlapped with the day the US started a military operation in Iraq and consequently event participants wrote together a declaration of peace. The most important outcome of this event was the low-level participation of Greek youth organisations other then AEGEE members in Greece. There have been a lot of discussions amongst participants how to attract the attention of Greek young people to the project. The hallmark event of the project was a youth and culture festival KAYAFEST organized in Kayakoy-Levissi in Turkey by AEGEE-Ankara between 27 July – 3 Association des Etats Généraux des Etudiants de L’Europe
August 2003. Kayakoy-Levissi is a very nice village in the south coast of Turkey, which witnessed compulsory exchange of population in 1923 when Greeks living in the village had to leave all their houses and settled in Greece in Nea Makri. The village has rich ecologic and historical value with all the marvelous ancient rock houses by Greeks; which were not inhabited later on by Turks. The village been often referred as the ghost village hosted an outstanding festival of young people. A total of 3000 young people from Greece and Turkey participated to the concerts, movies and documentaries, exhibitions from Nea Makri, Karagöz- Shadow Theater, interviews, theater sport, Sirtaki courses, boardpainting, hiking. The most meaningful part of the Festival was all the cultural workshops on Documentary Making, Dance Theater, Music, Photography and Psychology where Greek and Turkish young people working for 6 days together created magnificent works of art and performed together. The festival hosted an NGO fair where more than 66 NGOs from Turkey and Greece got to know each other and established partnerships and danced together. The festival is still a magic with all the Turkish villagers and them meeting young people from Greece, grandchildren of Greek people living in the village coming together with artists and majors. The festival left brilliant exhibitions and paintings of participants, photo exhibition, its magical stage lights volleyball nets for the school to the village as well as a lot of hope and bitter sweet memories in the hearts of everyone. The third event the symposium on the ‘Compulsory Exchange of Population` took place in Istanbul between 7-8 November 2003 on its 80th anniversary by AEGEE-Ankara and the Foundation of Lausanne Treaty Emigrants. This symposium was the first international conference that was final held in Turkey bravely dealing with exchange of population. The symposium was participated by 250 academics, master students and youth organisations from Greece and Turkey and hosted very interesting panel discussions on the Political and SocioEconomic Aspects of the Population Exchange, Population Exchange in Literature, Preservation of Cultural Heritage in Greece and Turkey, Culture Before and After Lausanne. The project’s Final Conference took place between 2-4 April 2004 in Ankara and organized by AEGEE-Ankara. The final conference aimed both at presenting the outcomes of the overall project as well as encouraging concrete partnerships and to talk about future partnership projects. More than 80 participants both from Greece and Turkey coming from a wide range of diverse youth organisations participated to highly interactive workshops on Introduction
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