ODTÜ - KÖPRÜ

Middle East Technical University (METU) is one of the most famous and renowned university in Turkey. The İstanbul METU Alumni Association (ISTODTU) is a non-profit, non-governmental organization created by the METU graduates, functioning with more than 4000 members. Its main purposes are: to transfer the knowledge, experience and opportunities that METU offers or the ‘METU spirit’ to other people in Turkey, and to give METU students the chance to serve their community and shape themselves, their careers, and their lives in the process. For this purpose, ISTODTU started a scholarship activity to support METU students both financially and socially. The scholarship group including students from METU and graduates from ISTODTU is called KÖPRÜ. KÖPRÜ is comprised of almost 450 students, at least half of which are socially aware and active students, many of whom are awarded scholarships either by the university or ISTODTU. Moreover, hundreds of graduates are in KÖPRÜ. KÖPRÜ is a very important part of ISTODTU as it is responsible for organizing many of ISTODTU's projects, presenting them to member and non-member students of METU and encouraging them to participate or help. It also cooperates with other similar organizations in Turkey in order to pursue big social projects. Being aware of the social and environmental problems in Turkey and in the world, our members try to apply the knowledge they have in their field of expertise and solve them. We try to inform people and engage them into social responsibility and awareness. We do so by offering various courses in various fields like foreign languages, music and arts, culture, intercultural communication, human rights etc. Moreover we organize different events and projects in the light of these concerns, like planting trees, building libraries in rural schools, etc. Most of our projects revolve around young people and children, as we believe that they are the future of the country. KÖPRÜ club has been in action since the year 2000 with an array of different social projects and is currently undertaking many more. Below are listed some of the projects and their main aims: 1) Orphanage Project – Helping orphans in their lessons and entertaining them with fun activities, music, arts etc. 2) Clothes and School supplies projects – Raising funds and gathering clothes/school supplies from our university students, and gifting them to children in rural areas 3)'Books are talking' Project – Reading activities and recording audio books for blind children and adults 4)Library Project – Gathering books (novels, school texts, magazines etc) from students/publishers and building libraries for schools in rural areas 5)Mobile Library Project – Open library for all METU students 6)Community Center Project – A collaboration with the municipality of Ankara to help children in need with their lessons and entertaining them with music and sports activities 7)Erasmus Plus Project – Sharing our experience with international partners and benefiting from their experience, in order to entertain and help children by means of arts, music and cultural activities. 8) Cooperation with LÖSEV: Cooperation with The foundation for children with leukaemia (LÖSEV) for helping and entertaining children with leukaemia in Turkey Moreover, KÖPRÜ has completed two Youth projects Under EU Education and Youth Programmers. One was in 2004, a youth exchange project organized in Ankara. The other was in 2005, a youth initiative project organized in Kirikkale/Büyükavşar. This year we have succeeded to have an approved KA1 project which is about Active Citizenship. It will be performed on June 2016.