ESN Turkey celebrates 25th Anniversary of Erasmus!

As you know the year 2012 is the 25^th Anniversary of the Erasmus Programme and Erasmus Student Network is celebrating this important year by many events taking place on local and national level all around Europe. In this article you can read about ESN Turkey and the events that ESN Turkey has organized in the past month.

ESN Turkey organized two big national events for its celebration of the anniversary. First one is a country-wide photography and short video competition, and the second one is Erasmus Festival. Both events were organized by Erasmus Student Network Turkey and supported by the Turkish Ministry of EU Affairs, Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism, and Turkish National Agency.

Photography and short video competition

Preparation phase for the photography and short video competition started already in January 2012 and the competition opened right after AGM to all Erasmus students studying in Turkey and also Turkish students who already went on their Erasmus. The competition period lasted for five weeks and in these five weeks we received many amazing videos and photographs. In total we got 455 photographs and 53 videos from current and former Erasmus students. The topic of the photos and videos was My Erasmus and it was not an easy task to select the best ones. To select the best pieces we created a jury consisting of professional artists from Mimar Sinan University of Fine Arts and they bravely took up the task to judge all the great work!

Awards Ceremony

To celebrate all the great work and especially the winning submissions we held an awards ceremony on 4^th of May in Istanbul. For this gala evening many representatives of international offices and student representatives from most of the Turkish universities arrived. The ceremony started by multiple speeches by people linked to the Erasmus Programme in Turkey. The speeches were given by the President of the Turkish National Agency – Mr. Musa Ceylan, the Deputy Head of the EU Delegation in Turkey - Mr. Tibor Varadi, the Rector of Mimar Sinan University of Fine Arts - Mr. Yalçın Karayağız, the Erasmus Program Coordinator of the Turkish National Agency - Mr. Ilyas Ulgur, and the Youth on the Move Ambassador - Mr. Ali Nasuh Mahruki.

After the speeches we awarded the first three places in both categories – photography and short video.

The winning photograph is by Seçkin Yıldırım and it is called “Gets a Lock on Love”. Second place got Safa Topal with a photo called “Love is Strong”, and the third place won Ziya Sarper Ekim with a photo called “A Little Bit Coincidence”.

The first place in the video category won Miraç Atabey with a short movie called “Günlük / The Diary”. Second place was awarded to Arturo Sanchez Cerveron with a short movie called “Feeling Alive - Turkey”, and the third place won Etienne Malec with a short video “Runaway in Lapland - An Erasmus Road Trip in the North”.

To enjoy all the amazing photographs that we received, and not only the winning ones, you are invited to check our album on Flickr. For all the wonderful short movies that we received, check our channel on Vimeo.

Erasmus Festival

The day after our Awards Ceremony we held another big event to celebrate the 25^th Anniversary of the Erasmus Programme. On Saturday 5^th of May we held the Erasmus Festival. The venue of the festival was in Istanbul and more than 1500 local and exchange student attended the festival.

It was a fun and busy day full of info markets, workshops, dance shows and it all ended up by a concert of a Turkish pop star Betül Demir. Student volunteers exhibited their cultures, and all the photos from the competition were shown!

Winning Photographs and Short Videos

1^st Place Short Video: Günlük / The Diary by Miraç Atabey

2^nd Place Short Video: Feeling Alive - Turkey by Arturo Sanchez Cerveron

3^rd Place Short Video: Runaway in Lapland - An Erasmus Road Trip in the North by Etienne Malec

1^st Place Photography: Gets a Lock on Love by Seçkin Yıldırım

2^nd Place Photography: Love is Strong by Safa Topal

3^rd Place Photography: A Little Bit Coincidence by Ziya Sarper Ekim

Photos from the Awards Ceremony and Erasmus Festival