Kırkayak Kültür Sanat ve Doğa Derneği

Since its establishment in 2011, Kırkayak Kültür has been working in various rights-based areas such as the right to non-discrimination, refugee rights, minority rights, the right to participate in cultural and artistic life, and gender equality by creating spaces for voluntary contact. In these spaces, socio-economically different segments of society come together and develop cultural pluralism and a culture of co-existence. 

In its activities, Kırkayak Kültür observe the principles of not leaving behind the disadvantaged and vulnerable segments of society or newcomers (refugees and migrants), gender equality, voluntarism, and rights-based work which are at the same time the values of the organization. 

Kırkayak Kültür continues its work on social cohesion and access to rights with an understanding that promotes cultural pluralism. It currently has under six programs: Culture & Arts, Migration, Urban Studies, Mutfak || Matbakh Workshop (Gender Equality), Media for Living Together, and Dom Studies carried out in two different centers in Gaziantep, namely Kırkayak Kültür – Art Center and Kırkayak Kültür – Center for Migration and Cultural Studies. 

Since its foundation, Kırkayak Kültür, a rights-based civil society organization based in Turkey, has been working together with civil society organizations and networks in Middle Eastern countries such as Jordan and Lebanon as well as many European Union member states. This cooperation takes place especially in projects on Migrant/Refugee Rights, Cultural Exchange, and Anti-discrimination and hate speech for Dom Communities living in the Middle East and other related groups. 

Center for Migration and Cultural Studies: Migration Studies Program focuses on migration and refugee studies with a perspective of coexistence and attempts to ground these studies on philosophical sources such as unconditional hospitality, cosmopolitanism, and rights of others.

Dom Studies Program: Since its establishment, Kırkayak Kültür has been conducting studies on the rights of Dom communities and other related groups living in the Middle East. It adopts a rights-based perspective while studying the basic problems, exclusion, and marginalization faced by Doms and other communities (Abdals, Roma, Loms) living in various Middle Eastern countries for reasons such as ethnicity, culture, and lifestyle. 

Mutfak/Matbakh Program brings together migrant and local women with a middle-class background and offers them open spaces to produce and organize activities in different fields and topics. While working for gender equality, the program also creates experiences of coexistence for all segments of society with the principle of gender equality.

Urban Studies Program: As a civil society organization based in Gaziantep, Kırkayak Kültür launched this program in order to preserve the cultural heritage of the city, especially its urban culture, culture and arts, gastronomy, and socio-economic cultural diversity, to document the urban memory, and to contribute to the city’s transformation process. It continues to ensure the social cohesion of newcomers migrating to the city, to endorse coexistence on the basis of fellow townsmenship, and to produce and contribute to the solutions facing the city.