Foundation promotes Turkish culture

By ANDREW WOLFE
Staff Writer

Teachers take advantage of program to tour Turkey

Taking American teachers to Turkey is just one of the many projects organized or funded by the Turkish Cultural Foundation.

Yalcin and Serpil Ayasli, of Nashua, founded the Washington, D.C.-based Turkish Cultural Foundation in 2000 to support cultural projects in Turkey and share Turkish culture with the rest of the world.

Yalcin Ayasli also founded and has retired from Hittite Microwave Corp., an integrated circuits company based in Chelmsford, Mass.

The couple’s political and cultural philanthropy were the subject of an earlier profile in The Telegraph.

“The vision entirely has been that of the Ayasli family,” foundation Director Guler Koknar said recently. “They are the founders; they created it. … The TCF is their brainchild, their labor of love.”

The foundation began working with the World Affairs Council of New Hampshire to send American teachers to tour Turkey in 2007, and the first group of New Hampshire teachers traveled there last year.

“The Turkish Cultural Foundation is proud to support the continuing education of the teachers who participate in this program,” Yalcin Ayasli wrote in a statement to The Telegraph.

“Learning should be a lifetime project. Bringing American educators to Turkey provides both the teachers and their students with a more comprehensive knowledge and understanding of the history of human civilization.

“Anatolia’s history dates back more than 10,000 years and the rich evidence of this history is plentiful – from the first human settlement of Catalhoyuk, the ancient ruins of Ephesus to the caravanserais of the Silk Road built by the Seljuk Turks.

“We hope to help bring this history and its contemporary importance alive to the teachers on our tours and for their students. Exposing American teachers to new cultures and countries, we believe, will improve their ability to make American students more competitive in the global marketplace.”

In addition to the teacher study tours, the foundation offers invitation-only cultural immersion tours for university heads, museum directors and other cultural leaders around the States, based on the simple idea that such exchanges can benefit both societies, Koknar said.

“We believe very firmly … whoever goes to Turkey comes back completely changed about the country,” Koknar said. “We live in this society (America), and Turks are quite proud of their heritage. … They want to give back to their homeland, their ancestral homeland.”

The foundation’s work isn’t limited to citizen diplomacy, however. Other projects range from sponsoring archeological research and grants to nongovernmental organization projects in Turkey, and running a Turkish cultural Web portal, www.turkishculture.org, that overflows with information on Turkish music, food and culture.

“Not everyone can travel to Turkey, but you can certainly learn more about it if you have time,” Koknar said.

Based in Istanbul and Washington, D.C., the foundation organizes and sponsors lecture series and cultural festivals around the United States and also supports archeology and other cultural projects in Turkey.

Because of the Ayaslis’ interest in preserving the craft of carpet making, the foundation also created and funds the Natural Dye Research and Development Laboratory in Istanbul, where researchers analyze samples from ancient textiles to try to re-create the recipes for ancient dyes made entirely from animal, vegetable and mineral ingredients.

Knowing the composition will help museums to conserve ancient carpets, and modern manufacturers may someday be able to re-create the original dyes, she said.

“You cannot re-create these colors with chemical dyes,” Koknar said.

For more information on the foundation’s various programs, visit www.turkishculturalfoundation.org.

Andrew Wolfe can be reached at 759-2808 or awolfe@nashuatelegraph.com.

via Foundation promotes Turkish culture – NashuaTelegraph.com.