İLKYAR

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İLKYAR is a volunteer based organization in Ankara, Turkey that reaches out to elementary schools in rural and underdeveloped parts of Turkey. The organization was found in 1978 and has donated (as of December 2003) more than 145000 education materials (including books, blackboards, sets of encyclopedias, computers, telescopes, overhead projectors, microscopes, TVs, video sets) to 803 schools. Besides providing the rural schools with education materials, İLKYAR volunteers also visit a number of public elementary boarding schools (YİBOs) every year. During these visits, İLKYAR volunteers spend time with students for two days organizing entertainment activities, playing games, and performing educational experiments.
İLKYAR volunteers are mostly university students and unversity faculty, mainly from the Middle Eastern Technical University (METU) in Ankara. The president of İLKYAR (who is also one of the four founders) is Professor Huseyin Vural from Mechanical Engineering Department in METU.
The name İLKYAR stands for "İlkoğretim Okullarına Yardım Vakfı" in Turkish which translates into "Aid Foundation for Elementary Schools".

İLKYAR and OLPC Turkey

Representatives from İLKYAR (Prof. Hüseyin Vural, Prof. Yasar Ozden and Ali Yılmaz) are collaborating with representatives from OLPC Turkey to plan a one school OLPC pilot project in a YİBO that İLKYAR has close access to.

See Also