“A unique, sustainable, and innovative education project”
An approach characterized by directness, empowerment, fostering imagination, sustainability, transferability, resisting categorization, acknowledging, and respecting diverse traits, defines the parameters of the Borusan Kocabıyık Foundation's educational framework.
The Borusan Story House project, launched and developed by the Borusan Kocabıyık Foundation to support education, features unique and innovative children's and teachers' workshop modules. The project began in November 2022 in the Beyoğlu district.
In this project, workshops exclusively designed for the Borusan Kocabıyık Foundation are led by educators with extensive experience in interdisciplinary educational fields and bring together students and teachers. In every workshop of the Borusan Story House, storytelling provides a foundation for understanding and expressing ourselves, others, and life, fostering empathy and nurturing its development. Storytelling has been integral to all our workshops, which include expressive play, creative drama, plastic arts, and science-based activities such as math and chemistry.
Implemented through a cooperation protocol between the Borusan Kocabıyık Foundation and the National Education Directorate of the Beyoğlu District, the project has three main components: Teacher Meetings, Weekday Workshops for children aged 7-9, and Weekend Workshops.
Teacher Meetings:
At the Borusan Story House, our Teacher Meetings are designed to meet the learning, practice, and communication needs of classroom teachers, aligning with the findings of field studies.
The first series of workshops, conducted with an on-site training approach for teachers from primary and middle schools in Beyoğlu, focused on children's stories, while the second series centered on non-violent communication. In the Teacher Meetings held in 2023, we conducted 79 sessions across 6 schools in Beyoğlu. During these meetings, we delivered sessions exceeding 120 hours on the use of children's stories in classroom communication, reaching a total of 72 teachers.
In 2024, we carried on with the Teacher Meetings in Beyoğlu through Nonviolent Communication Workshops while also hosting Storytelling Workshops for four months in Hatay at the Teacher Solidarity Space, a sub component of the Education Reform Initiative’s Teacher Network. In Hatay, we held 25 workshops with a total of 675 participants, and in Istanbul, we conducted 25 workshops across 2 schools, engaging 355 participants.
Weekday Education Workshops:
Borusan Story House sees education as a roadmap and values the importance of addressing individual needs. Our educational program for children, specifically designed for ages 7-9, entirely unique to BKV, brings together various disciplines in an experimental format, meticulously crafted by experts to reflect the needs and trends of the field.
Our Weekday Education Workshops featured 8 guest instructors from 8 different fields across 32 sessions throughout the 2024 academic year. For each workshop, we invited a class from designated primary schools. Spanning disciplines such as creative drama, expressive play, Bauhaus, jeux dramatiques, mathematics, and chemistry, our 2024 Weekday Education Workshops reached a total of 759 students. In 2024, we hosted 32 workshops held between January-May and October-December and welcomed 28 classes from 17 schools in Beyoğlu and Şişli.
Weekend Education Workshops:
Led by resident instructor Fatma Filiz Işık Bulut, our Weekend Education Workshops feature 6 workshops per month. These workshops, all focusing on emotions and structuring their educational framework accordingly, are held on Sundays during the academic year, consisting of two sessions.
A project committed to the importance of non-formal education and its direct impact on children's self-awareness, social interactions, and academic performance, the Borusan Story House aims to both cultivate and maintain a culture of solidarity within its parent organization, the Borusan Kocabıyık Foundation, while also nurturing the Foundation's values towards art and life with its Weekend Education Workshops.
Through these efforts, we engaged a total of 1056 children across 48 workshops conducted between February-May and October-December 2024.
Psychosocial Support Workshops:
As the Borusan Story House, following the February 6 earthquakes, we initiated a comprehensive program that provides regular psychosocial support for children and young people in the affected regions. From May 2023 to December 2023, we conducted monthly workshops with a special team of experts in fields related to children in Adıyaman and Hatay.
Among the goals of the Borusan Story House PSS workshops are;
These workshops aimed to accurately identify the need for psychosocial support (PSS) and conduct regular activities with a dynamic structure that could adapt to any situation.
Six months following the completion of our work in Adıyaman, we directed our efforts only toward Hatay. A team of 6 to 8 expert trainers, experienced in post-traumatic stress disorder, initially addressed emotional needs in both locations, later transitioning to educational support.
The program was structured in three phases: In the first phase (May-July 2023), we conducted 188 workshops, reaching 4982 children. The second phase (September-December 2023) focused on development and micro-groups, with 228 workshops, reaching 2253 children. In the final phase (January-May 2024), we conducted 356 workshops, engaging 7382 children.
A Vision to Shape the Future Exhibition Non-Formal Education Workshops
The Borusan Story House Exhibition Program was specially created to offer children an enjoyable exhibition experience at the A Vision to Shape the Future exhibition, opened by the Borusan Kocabıyık Foundation to celebrate the 100th anniversary of our Republic. This program, started in December 2023 in cooperation with the Beyoğlu District National Education Directorate, will continue until June 2024.
Story House educators led guided exhibition visits designed specifically for third and fourth-grade students from elementary schools in Beyoğlu, ensuring a curriculum-aligned experience. Additionally, we welcomed middle and high school students, adapting the tour to their developmental needs. Using the jeux dramatiques method, children explored the exhibition through guided play with an educator and then participated in a workshop to reinforce their learning. With a strong emphasis on high-quality cultural experiences and non-formal education, this fruitful collaboration allowed us to host students from 55 schools and 296 classes across Istanbul, reaching a total of 11,048 students between January and June 2024.
Our Silent Book: Bazen Öyle, Bazen Böyle
Story House also focuses on silent books, which is one of the major gaps in elementary education. In 2024, we released our first silent book, Bazen Öyle, Bazen Böyle, [Sometimes Like This, Sometimes Like That] which explores the theme of friendship. We printed 1000 copies, and within three months, 780 of those were distributed to students, receiving widespread appreciation. The book has gained significant recognition and was chosen to represent Türkiye at the 2025 Bologna Children’s Book Fair, the world's most prestigious and only dedicated exhibition for silent books.
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