Empowering Youth Through Volunteerism

Chand is a graduate from Istanbul Technical University and has been a volunteer at Istanbul&I since December 2019. He is actively engaged with the Turkish Speaking Club and the English Speaking Club. “Why do I volunteer at I&I?I was inspired to join I&I after seeing the active participation of a past volunteer, Mustafa Hoshmand who happens to be an old acquaintance of mine. I chose to volunteer in the English Speaking Club and Turkish Speaking Club since I believe that I have the potential to contribute largely to the learning process of the motivated participants. So, once I started volunteering, those 19 00 – 21 00 time slots of my weekdays and weekends immediately became part of my life. Is volunteering about me? Or it is about the people? Eventually, I had these questions answered by coming to the following conclusion; by allocating these mere 2 hours on any day during the week, you never know how you may boost someone to continue his/her learning quest. On one side, I have been teaching English, French and Turkish to people by giving private tuitions, however, having the opportunity to work with motivated people, seeing their progress and in return, receiving their sincere appreciation just pushes me to do more for them. So far, I am yet to do other voluntary activities at I&I but I’m sure that it will be as enjoyable and fruitful as my experience with the speaking clubs. See you all either at the English Speaking Club or Turkish Speaking Club.”

Manohur Chand Poonyth

Amjad is a Computer Engineering student at BTEC Academy. He joined as a volunteer in September and has been highly active in the photography and videography of our projects as well as taking part in our volunteering projects Sokak Lambası and Yedikule Animal Shelter! “Why do I volunteer at I&I?There are many reasons to volunteer, Helping to do something good in the community, helping people and children, showing the laugh on their faces. You have an impact on society and don’t just stay seated because we all have an obligation to do something when we can.”

Amjad Khoulani 

Born and raised in Brunei, Ara came to Istanbul in 2016 to pursue her Master studies in Ottoman Studies at Istanbul Medeniyet University. She has been a volunteer at Istanbul&I since 2019 and is currently the manager for Istanbul&I’s collaboration project with Sokak Lambası Yardımlaşma Ve Dayanışma Derneği. She also volunteers for other projects such as Ahtapot Gönüllüleri, Yedikule Hayvan Barınağı, Iftar&Community, and English Speaking Club. “Why do I volunteer at I&I? I have always been interested in helping the disadvantaged and giving back to the community in this city that I have grown to love. I have never had the opportunity to do so until I joined I&I. I might not be able to change the world or anything grand like that, but I can at least lend a hand into making this world a better place for everyone! Every little action matters! Volunteering with I&I provides me with a completely different perspective on life and it sort of gives my life a new purpose. Being a part of I&I also makes me feel like a part of this big awesome family of global youths in Istanbul!”

Ara Ahmad

Zeynep is a Law Faculty student at Istanbul University and has been an active volunteer at Istanbul&I since 2018. She is the manager of our latest Yedikule Animal Shelter Volunteer project. “Why do I volunteer at I&I?I can count several reasons why I volunteer but I think the main reason is I want to put my hand under the rock, meaning I don’t want to complain and do nothing like most of the people do nowadays. I believe in butterfly effect, the smallest thing I do might be the beginning of a huge wave that will change our community for the better. I am passionate about animal rights and want animals to have better lives in Turkey. Also, I help people learn Turkish and English as a volunteer. Thanks to I&I, I have found out that I am pretty good at helping people learn and that I love tutoring and seeing people learn from me! We now have a new project called Yedikule Animal Shelter Project which we go on every Wednesday to help them (plus pet the dogs!)”

Zeynep Duygu

Fatih is Mechatronic Engineer and has been an active volunteer at Istanbul&I since March 2019. He is a member of the HR team and he volunteers at most of our projects including but not limited to English Speaking Club, Turkish Speaking Club and Introduction to Culture events. He has also led the Istanbul&I Football Tournament fundraiser in collaboration with Yabangee. “Remember the person who touched your life slightly with their goodness when you were a kid, maybe a teacher, a volunteer or a random person on the street, the one who you’d never forget and feel thankful about. The same way touching lives of children, elderlies, even animals or whoever is in need of help with respectable amount of effort, the pleasure of what you know you are channelling someone or something in order to become better makes me feel satisfied and living for a good purpose. This is the primal reason why I started and still feel passionate to volunteer. I was struck all of a heap the very first time I saw the diversity in Istanbul&I when I attended one of the events. I had never experienced the diversity as much as Istanbul&I has getting together in order to make social impact. My desire to join this community immediately reached its peak. And since I was involved in Istanbul&I until now I can easily say that I have learned invaluable values that I could never learn in my mundane life along with having the most precious people in my life.”

Fatih Korum