Work Continues in Biga!

Dear Friends,

The women of the Biga Women and Children's Center are continuing their hard work! This week the center was fitted with ceramic tiles in the bathroom and kitchen. Additionally, the future teachers and and volunteers (the lifeblood of the center!) will this week have completed 500 surveys of local families to find out how they might best use the center. In the meantime they are anxiously awaiting an answer from a local firm that might supply some state-of-the-art siding for the outside of the center.

In other news, I am once again fundraising...this time to get myself over to Turkey for the opening ceremony the first week in November! This ceremony will represent the culmination of all of the work done up to this point, as well as the financial resources invested in this worthy project. It will function as a symbol and public showing of our support for these women's work, and for the right of each child in the Biga community to have early childhood education. Our hope is that this ceremony will earn the center respect and legitimacy in the community, as well as spark the interested and earn the trust of potential patrons of the center.

I will be using facebook causes (where this all started!) birthday application to try to raise the additional $500 needed to get me to Turkey and back. Please spread the word!

all my best and thanks for reading,
Jill



Pictures:

1. Center volunteers sorting through piles of donated items for the center:

2. Center volunteers in what will be one of two children's classrooms:

3. Men at work on the center:

4. Ayfer ablam and Omer Kucuk meeting about the building plans:

A Floor in the Works!

Dear Friends,

Apologies for the delay in updates! While our friends in Biga were taking a well-deserved break and celebrating Seker Bayrami, I was moving into my graduate school housing in Princeton, NJ. I'm all moved in now, and started intermediate Turkish today! Wish me luck :)

And meanwhile, in the realm of much more important things, the center has a floor in the works. The cement pouring was delayed for a few days but now has been poured and is drying. Tomorrow ceremic tiles will be fitted and set in the bathrooms.

Here are some move pictures from the field:

As ever, many thanks and all my best,

Jill

We have a roof!

Dear friends,

I write you today with very happy news! Our center has a roof:

Today and tomorrow, the plumbing and central heating systems are being installed. On Wednesday the alum cement will be poured and then will be given two to three days to dry. These few days when work can't be done come at a fortuitous time, coinciding exactly with the Seker Bayrami, the religious holiday that marks the end of Ramadan in Turkey.

For my Turkish-speaking readers, this quote, take from an email to me from Ayfer Baykal, expresses the excitement of the women today: "Cok heycanli, o kadar mutluyum merkezimiz bitiyor, Jill!"

All my best,

Jill :)

Biga women already at work as building continues

Dearest friends,

I received an email from my good friends in Biga yesterday letting me know that the roofing materials have finally arrived! After weeks of waiting and being in constant contact with the factory and distributer, the sandwich panels arrived Thursday. In two days time the roof will be finished and work inside the center can commence. The roof has been the missing linchpin in the building process this summer, as any interior work requires protection from the elements.

In the meantime the women have already been hard at work. The group of teachers and volunteers that will be life-force of the center have been walking around the neighborhoods closest to the center, telling people about the center's functions and goals, and asking local women what they would use the center for. Their main purpose is to survey local families on their greatest needs and challenges, as well as the ways they could use the center to find solutions. Would they be likely to enroll in a women's savings group, or would they be more interested in the practical value of sewing lessons and the use of the center's sewing machines? How old are their children, and would they be interested in entering them in preschool or daycare? Would the family potentially use this as a social space?

1. The roofings supplies in front of the center:

2. The survey team hard at work!

Thanks for reading!

:) Jill