My Reflections for the Mauritius Event

Dear Dosts,

While I was going to Mauritius to participate in the "1st International Convention on Challenged Students Empowerment" which was held on 17-19 December, 2008, I had some questions in my mind: "Why Mauritius? Why not a larger and well-known country?" However, after meeting the Convenor and the other people and also witnessing the care shown to the challenged there, the content of my questions changed a lot. Since that time, I have been asking the following ones: "Why cannot the developed countries internalize "peace"? Why cannot they support and behave to every individual citizen equally? Why cannot we empower the challenged ones and create self-confidence in them as they did in Mauritius?"
In fact, the answer of these questions were given in yesterday's daily Cumhuriyet by our dearest friend Figen Atalay: "There is a multicultural structure in Mauritius and they all leave in peace. Everyone celebrates every religion's holy day. On the island there are Hindu temples, mosques and churches. Once, the war between British and French had been solved through a different method: The wounded commanders of each army had been placed within the same hospital room and all the disagreements had been finalized."
Now a similar approach is on. The richest and the poor people live together in a great harmony. Social security is high; free health care and free education have been provided with the Government. The population is 1,200,000. You might have said that: "Ooo, it is very easy to govern such a small community!". However, in such a country, it must be something extraordinary to be providing everything free and establishing so many NGOs supporting the challenged. It is so much interesting to achieve this at such a country where the freedom was gained in 1968 and the Republic was founded in 1992'. The people in that wonderful country have succeeded in this and got the advantage of being the pioneer one among the other countries organizing the 1st International Convention for the Challenged Students. I especially congratulate my dearest Dost Coco (Mohundas Teeluck), his lovely family and his very hardworking team.
It seems to me that I will never forget that wonderful country. We still get very sincere mails from the island. Coco sends their loves and regards of his family while sending his Reports. If you ask about us; we have had many things to do in the near future. Firstly, we include the challenged students into the 6th International ICT Seagull Project. Every circle is expected to include one challenged student. The CMS Team has already been formed. I congratulate them in advance.
Within my earlier diaries, I had shared some photos from the Mauritius event. As far as I notice; music and swimming are the most popular activities for the challenged students. Art is another one. I will never forget about the Sega music and dance of Mauritius which lasted for hours and hours at the Convention nights. The students used to wear their lovely dresses and then dance for hours. After the presentations and streams, each challenged student got an Award which is a must of the "Quality-Focused Activities". It was a well-managed Convention. I will never forget about the lights of hope within the pupils of their eyes. A similar event was held last year by the TOFD in Istanbul and I had again admired the president Ramazan Baş and his team. My suggestion for the coming years to work and collaborate more effectively for the lovely challenged students.
Our aim is to train new Helen Kellers, Einsteins and Hawkings. But to realize this; the support of the society, the logical and supportive laws of the policitians, the love and support of the families, the knowledge and support of the teachers are the main ingreadients. The challenged students watched and listened to the Convention keynotes from the first raw and I admired their attitude towards the speakers' words. They have influenced me a lot.
Now what we expect from the national and international authorities and NGO leaders is to be sensitive to those lines and to watch the videos and photos we collected from the venue there. We all know that; WE ARE ALL ONE AND WE STAND TOGETHER! Please share your reflections through mailing. Here is my address: hayal@hayalkoksal.com

I would like to send my love and respect to the authorities who held a wonderful meeting in Mauritius. We hope that the obstacles should not be in brains and minds to help each other.

Hayal Köksal

A Happy New Year

Dear Dosts,

I wish you a very happy and fruitful New Year.

Loves from Istanbul.

Hayal Köksal

Removing Barriers

Dear All,

After a week, it is lovely to come back to my country. I will be glad for sharing our experiences at Mauritius The first photo belongs to a good sharing & caring time with the Minister of Education, Tourism and HR_ Mr. Bunwaree. We, all the delegates and the challenged students of CMS visited him. The other photos and unforgattable moments will be shared later on.
30th December is the deadline for the registeration to the 6th International ICT Seagulls Competition. I wanted to remind you of it. With love and peace...
Hayal Köksal

Loves from Fethiye

My Dearest Colleagues,

Towards the end of the Eid, following an opportunity we flew to the south-west corner of Türkiye and came to Fethiye, Muğla this morning. It will last only 3 days to stay in Paradise and then I will fly to another paradise, called Mauritius. How lucky I feel myself with these unexpected candies, I cannot tell you! You can see 3 different views from Fethiye and Dead Sea (Ölü Deniz). Today is the 10th of December, it is a winter day and some people were swimming in the sea, can you imagine?

On Monday, our journey to Mauritius will start and I have been very excited for meeting old and new dosts and also witnessing some new methodologies for the training of the disabled (Challenged) students.

I wish you also realize your dreams this week just like me. Loves,

Hayal Köksal

Fest of Sacrifice & Its Reflections on Us

Dear Dosts,
I wish you a Fest of Sacrifice ornamented with love, peace and tolerance.
After the Feast of Ramadan we should emphasize the main aim of this Religious Day as it must have been. What is it? To help our colleagues, relatives and friends who are in need of our help and thus not to destroy the philosophy of our young children who love their sheep or cows just like their own pets. Let's make use of the good characteristics of our religion to bring up peace-lover generations. I wanted to share the caricature which was sent by a friend of mine_Suzan_ to emphasize this feature. I send my best wishes to her due to her sharing it with us.
We will be in Fethiye on 10th -13th December to meet our colleagues, and in Mauritius on 15th-22nd December to share the wonderful projects of the Challenged Students.
With an endless love to you...

Hayal Köksal

Challenged Students & 3rd December

Dear all,

Tomorrow is the "World Challenged People Day". The challenged ones are not different from the ones who are our dearests. Furthermore; it is a reality to become one of them due to some unexpected accidents or misfortunes. While the fact is like this; it is not justice to seperate one of the days of the year to "the handicapped" and to feel relieved. The most important thing to give the following feelings to such dearest dosts:

- S/he is not different from us as the human value,

- Our main responsibility is to understand their problems and to show real efforts to find solutions for them,

- To teach them some effective ways and tools on the way of empowering them in their own daily life procedures. Thus, to make them free from the compulsory help of others.

Feeling pity and even showing this negative feeling to them, furthering them and even insulting them are not the behavious of a qualified human being. Such kind of attitude is a sign of an "sick brain"!
Dear Dosts, I participated in a Unesco Workshop on 27-29 November in Antalya. It was about "Education for All (EFA)". It was very inspiring and useful for me. The first item of the FEA Program of Unesco was as follows:
"To give importance to the preschool education, especially for the challenged ones."
Through brainstorming and project offerings, EFA was supported by the participants who are mainly from NGOs, Universities and the Ministry of National Education. A few of those projects were for the Challenged ones. These are very motivating activities. However; on such an important day, I want to share my sadness with you:
On the very first day of September I got an invitation from the Convener of an International convention_Mr Mohundas Teeluck_ to the "1st International Convention on the Challenged Students Empowerment (ICCSE)" which will be realized by the collaboration of the'World Council for Total Quality & Excellence in Education (WCTQEE)' & 'Mauritius Government" in Mauritius on 17-19 December, 2008. I was invited with a large number Turkish delegation to the event as the Chief Coordinator of Turkey (I am the Director General of WCTQEE and ı also conduct projects with the challenged students). This event is the FIRST within the world and it has a great improtance for the challenged ones. In order to tell our special schools, activities, seminars and NGOs for the handicapped ones, it is a good opportunity. In addition to this, our two challenged speakers from the 11th ICSQCC had been specifically invited to that event as the special talks. Oh my dear colleagues, what a pity but we could not find any funding for those 2 students and their nurses to go to mauritius. I feel hopeless after a three-month- effort for searching some sponsors. While students coming from other countries are presenting their projects, we (with my journalist friend) will only watch them, feel happy for them but feel bad for the Turkish ones who are not able to go there due to financial reasons. We knocked on every related door_state, private and NGO. We tried to reach at higher authorities but could not realize our dreams. We informed all the famous daily newspapers but only one of them has been interested in it. This is so sad. I wonder if it is the same for my other colleagues, for other DGs. I will learn about it soon.

Yes, tomorrow is the Day for the Challenged ones. We must think more and longer about this issue. We, Turks are known as one of the most haspitable and helpful people. Let's prove it. Our Metropolitan Municipality has had 18 Special Center for the Challenged people. We have a General Directorate within the Ministry of National Education and we have hundreds of NGOs concerning the handicapped. We still have a few days more to find support for 4 people who will talk about their project. Besides, Mauritius does not ask for Visa for the participants. The mauritius Government will afford all the room, food and transfer expenses. The only load for us to but the plane tickets and leave for Mauritius with the projects and papers to be presented there.
Now, hear our voice and help us to realize this dream for the Turkish challenged people. If we cannot do this, as a teacher I will lose my faith to Education, Collaboration and ...

I hope we will be there and prove the power of İmece to the whole world. Thanks to you_Mohundas for this great work you realized.

Dr. Hayal Köksal

Self-Questioning

Dear All,

After the busy months of the Summer and the Fall, I still feel the great emptiness of those speedy days and I miss them. However, my family insist on my resting for some time and thus they want me to support my tired body. My feelings & my love for creating more projects are in one hand and my health & wishes of my family are on the other. They are trying to convince me to lessen the burden of my projects upon my shoulders. For me, the former is more important but for them; the latter!

Working hard for long hours never makes me step back but the obstacles before us... This is the most important criterion to lessen my work. For years and years, I have been working hard to create and to lead many projects. If you have a supporting body behind you to lead successful projects, there exists no problem. However, we all know that educational projects are rarely supported and publicized by media. The world has changed a lot, and the education seems to have lost its affect and charm on people. What a pity!

The newly appeared values & beliefs lead our youngesters to dangerous and violent-focused valleys...How will we save them? It seems to be difficult. We need the support of not only schools and parents but also the other powerful environments and means like; media, politicians, and even religious people. Ethical side of human beings seems to have changed its target. Money is the most powerful motivator for the youth. Is it so, in reality? To realize this, what are needed? To reach at a certain age? T have a different type of training? Friends? What?

I have been combatting for improving the quality level of individuals, organizations and especially schools since 1992. How successful have I become? Was it and also is it easy? Why and why not? What are the main ingredients? Do we have all of them for the sustainability? As you guess; these are very difficult questions... This puzzle must be solved but how? Such kind of self- questioning makes my mind busy nowadays. I wanted to share one part of it. Do you feel the same? If you do, why do not you write to me? Sharing is one important way of creating synergy. If you agree, please share your thoughts...

With love and peace.

Hayal Köksal