Moving Away Moving Within - Study about the benefits of physical and creative activities

MOVING AWAY, MOVING WITHIN Study about the benefits of physical and creative activities in the self-definition of body and space in the context of displacement

Research on outcomes of BoMoVu association’s project Your Movement is Free, February-May 2018.

Research commissioned by BoMoVu association with the support of the

Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation undertaken by Doğa Can Atalay.

This study was made with the assistance of Burcu Ayan and revised by Nil Delahaye and Eleni Nadin Diker.

All photographs courtesy of Gökçe İnce.

BOMOVU

Sports and Body Movement for Vulnerable Groups Association - BoMoVu was officially founded on 3 May 2016. We had carried out smaller actions since 2013 with our knowledge of different sports and the will to share the pleasure we get from them, with the aim to create a physical solidarity. We decided to establish our association after we had taken our first steps on this movement-based approach with unaccompanied migrant children, create solidarity with women in Armenia, and children from Istanbul’s Sulukule neighborhood to prevent school dropouts.

Most of sports dictate certain physical requirements for the sake of competitiveness and perfectionism, leaving aside the happiness and well-being that sport is supposed to provide.

BoMoVu is defending the right to equal opportunity in sports and challenging this normative approach that discriminates against persons on the basis of their physical characteristics.

For this reason, we develop programs that transform sports and body movement into social value; we struggle against discriminations taking place inside practices. We bring together a network composed of sports and body movement practitioners with vulnerable groups such as children, refugees, women, the disabled, in order to assist their social empowerment. In all our work, we think, organize and produce through a body movement and rights-based approach.

YOUR MOVEMENT IS FREE PROJECT

Your Movement is Free is a tool developed by BoMoVu association to reach out to community centers welcoming refugees in Istanbul. With a network of sports and performing arts practitioners, refugee children and adults benefiting from services of community centers in Istanbul are offered a physical activities program to accompany their educational and psychosocial support.

The base of Your Movement is Free is the right to physical integrity. The right to physical integrity is a constitutional right. It protects the inviolability of human body. The right to physical integrity is a principle that provides the basis for other rights and freedoms. One’s right to life and to the respect of one’s body is enabled through the protection of the right to physical integrity. In the case of migration from a war-torn land, freedom of movement is a bodily right highly challenged both by international policies and physical violence inflicted by conflicts. This project’s aim is to help safeguard displaced refugees’ physical integrity and understanding of freedom of movement through the practice of physical activities in the hosting environment.

SUMMARY BoMoVu association has been implementing physical and creative activities in three community centers in Istanbul since February 2017. The aim of Your Movement Is Free (Hareketin Özgür) project is to help safeguard displaced refugees’ physical integrity and understanding of freedom of movement through the practice of physical activities in the hosting environment.

This research tries to assess the physical development of participants and how these development affects their lives with the help of in-depth interviews and observations in the course of the last three months of the project from February till May 2018. In this research , we focused on the physical activities and its effects on refugee children’s daily lives, relationships, and developments. We benefited from different kinds of literature, such as migration, identity and physical literacy.

The three main themes focused on are: 1) How physical activities affects children and young people’s daily lives and routines?

2) What kind of physical changes happened in participants?

3) How these activities changed their relationships both in micro level (with their parents and friends) and macro level (with the society in general)?

In the light of answers to these questions and observations, we try to reveal the importance of structured physical activities for all and especially for displaced persons and how an educational approach based on the recognition of the existence of the body can be beneficial.

INTRODUCTION When the Syrian conflict began in 2011, it was hard to predict that it would result in one of the largest mass flows of refugees in world history. Today, one in every five refugee in the world is Syrian and Syria has become the top refugee-producing country in the world (UNHCR, 2017). Between 2011 and today, the total number of Syrian refugees in the world reached 5,6 million1 and 3,5 million of them currently live in Turkey2. Turkey’s critical position as a transit country and the political dynamics in Europe and in Turkey caused policy makers to take steps to prevent the movement of refugees towards Europe. Refugees also face with several restrictions against their movement within Turkey. Syrian refugees are not allowed to move from one city to another without getting permission from the Provincial Directorates of Migration Management (PDMM) authorities. In addition to the obstacles in legislation that hinder the movement of refugees, adaptation to the dynamics of a previously unknown country and the negative perception of locals about the presence of refugees is further isolating refugees and greying their bodily presence in their new localities. However, in all consideration of countries’ efforts of mass humanitarian help, it is important to remember that the Freedom of Movement is stated to be protected by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights under the Article 13. The conditions under which human body becomes a political site on which government authorities have every right to intervene, hinders the processes of social cohesion and empowerment of refugees as members of their new societies.

In this framework, BoMoVu association is implementing the project “Your Movement is Free” (Hareketin Özgür) with the support of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation in three community centers in Istanbul. This project’s objective is to support refugees and people from the host community to embody their freedom of movement as a right and to support their conception and relation with their body and environment while bringing together people from both communities. This research focuses on the achievements of this project.

Physical activities have an important impact on people’s well being, meaning “their state of equilibrium or balance that can be affected by life events or challenges” (Dodge, R., Daly, A., Huyton, J., & Sanders, L., 2012). The practice of physical activities is getting more important when we focus on the children and young people (OECD, 2018). Physical health is highly related with children’s academic achievements, life skills, and most importantly for our research, their relationships with society. In various articles focusing on child wellbeing, researchers point out the importance of the environment of children, including living environment (Arnold and Doctoroff, 2003; Solar and Irwin, 2010); we support here the idea that physical activities have a positive impact on children’s relations with their environment. We also know that from different researches, children physical health conditions have an impact on their situation in wider society and in their personal relationships at school or in their families. For instance, poor physical health is affecting productivity at school; children who participate in regular physical activities have a better work memories than others (Felez-Nobrega et al., 2017). Unfortunately, the access to physical activities remains a luxury for most of children including refugees in Turkey and in most places of the world. Seen as leisure, physical activities are rarely a focus in humanitarian help and almost never a target. Both funding bodies and projects implementing organizations do not widely consider sports and all bodily related activities nor as tools for empowerment neither as an objective per se. The case of “Your Movement is Free” project is thus proposing a unique facilitating programme.

1 http://data2.unhcr.org/en/situations/syria 2

http://www.goc.gov.tr/icerik6/gecici-koruma_363_378_4713_icerik

In this report about BoMoVu’s activities at the community centers, we specifically tried to understand the following problematics;

1) How physical activities affect children and young people’s daily lives and routines?

2) What kind of physical changes happened in participant children?

3) How these activities changed their relationships both on the micro level (with their parents and friends) and on the macro level (with the society in general)?

We will seek answers to these questions with the analytic support of three different areas; physical literacy, identity and migration. Throughout this research , we had the opportunity to lead in-depth interviews with beneficiaries of the Project, to conduct participant observations, and to evaluate the observations of the instructors of the activities. It provided us a chance to understand participants’ relationship with their bodies through physical activities and how those activities affects them on the long run.

As mentioned before, in order to find points of analysis to our problematics, we have make appeal to the concept of Physical Literacy. According to Whitehead’s definition of the concept; “Physical literacy can be defined as the ‘motivation, confidence, physical competence, understanding and knowledge to maintain physical activity at an individually appropriate level, throughout life’. It is proposed (Whitehead and Murdoch 2006) that the nurturing and establishment of physical literacy should be the underpinning goal of all movement work in pre-school, school, extracurricular and post-school settings. Physical education in school should be less focused on specific activity skill development and immediate fitness and more concerned with developing and maintaining all-round embodied competence, together with positive attitudes towards this sphere of human activity. A wide range of personal benefits could accrue from this approach, not least effective interaction with numerous and varied environments, selfconfidence and self-esteem.” (Whitehead, 2008:287).

In addition to this definition, according to Whitehead (2008:288), physical movement has an impact on children’s self-recognition that enables one to create their own self-concept and self-confidence. At this point, we should also mention that in childhood, according to Burkitt (1999, 76), the ‘I’ concept is highly related with the thought of ‘I can’. Gallagher also contributes to Burkitt with the following statement; ‘It may even be possible to say that bodily movement, transformed onto the level of action, is the very thing that constitutes the self’ (Gallagher 2005, 9).

Gallagher also provides a deeper understanding of how particular physical activities can affect our position in the world. He writes; “Exercise, dance, and other practices that affect motility and postural schemas can have an effect on the emotive evaluation of one’s own body image. . . .

Thus changes in the control of movement associated with exercise alter the way that subjects emotionally relate to and perceive their bodies. It is not difficult to imagine that such positive effects can change one’s attitudes toward and perception of the surrounding world.” (Gallagher 2005, 144).

From these views, we can say that, physically literate individuals, tend to be more confident and act accordingly to this in the outside world. However, we must add that, physical literacy is also mainly conditioned by culture . For example, in every culture gender, social positions, economic power plays a significant role in people’s ways of moving in their daily life.

In addition to the physical literacy literature, we supported our research with key concepts from migration studies.

Migration studies is a multidisciplinary field that evolves with the changing migratory realities.

The drastic increase in forced displacement situations and the unwillingness of the international community to host sufficient numbers of refugees have led to increasing debates on how to efficiently respond to the needs of the displaced in their first asylum countries. Refugee situations are increasingly characterized by prolonged periods of exile in urban settlements rather than regulated camps. The urbanization of refugees and their protracted displacement become subjects of international debates and feature prominently on states’ political agendas and urban governance strategies. The situation of Syrian refugees in Turkey is an example of this shift towards protraction and urbanization in the nature of refugee situations worldwide.

Although Turkey is somewhat familiar with the refugee-hosting experience, the unprecedented nature and scale of the Syrian refugee flows has turned the situation into an emergency crisis.

The constant increase in the number of arrivals on the Southeastern borders has made Turkey the largest refugee-hosting country by the end of 2014 when the total refugee population was around 1.5 million (UNHCR Global Trends, 2016). By July 2018, the number of Syrians seeking asylum in Turkey have more than doubled, reaching over 3,5 million according to the latest figures from Directorate General of Migration Management3.

3

Directorate General of Migration Management in Turkey, Migration Statistics - www. goc.gov.tr

In the first years of the mass migration movements from Syria, the majority of refugees were staying in government-run camps in the Southeastern provinces of Turkey. However, the encampment policy of the government failed to serve as a sustainable solution for hosting refugees (İçduygu & Diker, 2017). Today, only 6% of the total Syrian refugee population are staying in camps and the remaining 94% are dispersed around the country (goc.gov. tr). Istanbul is hosting the largest number of Syrian refugees and it is followed by Şanlıurfa, Hatay, and Gaziantep (goc.gov.tr, 2017). The open door policy of the Turkish government and its generous humanitarian response by extension of the temporary protection regime is acknowledged by both the international community and the refugees. However, the greater challenge of developing a long-term integration policy still remains on table with gradual improvements. In early 2016, the government has taken concrete steps that herald signs of recognition of refugees’ permanence. The enactment of work permit regulation that facilitates Syrian refugees’ access to the labor market, the establishment of Migrant Health Centers and the decision to fully integrate refugee children to Turkish schools by gradually phasing out Temporary Education Centers could be considered as important steps towards integration of Syrian refugees. However, such improvements take place with the cost of increasing antiimmigrant sentiment in the country.

It is widely observed that the public opinion becomes more unwelcoming in line with the increasing length of refugees’ stay. There are many myths and misconceptions about the rights and status of Syrians in Turkey. In many instances, the rights of refugees are perceived as privileges by the Turkish society. The locals mostly complain about Syrian refugees due to the competition in the job market, the social benefits given to them and the perceived security threat that they bring (International Crisis Group, 2016). Some of the common false allegations about the Syrian refugees are that they are put on salary by the government, they have increased the crime rates, that they can access universities without any conditions.

According to the preliminary findings of a survey conducted in Istanbul, 91% of 1224 Turkish respondents believe that they have difficulties finding a job because of Syrians, 94% believe that the rents increased because of Syrians and 83% think that the infectious diseases are more widespread because of Syrians (Kavaklı, 2016). According to the findings, host communities are also worried about the social and cultural aspects of co-existence with Syrians. For example, they believe that the arrival of Syrians have caused an erosion in the moral values of the society, the quality of the social services they receive have decreased because of the large number of Syrians etc. Another poll by TEPAV (2017) indicates that %40 percent of the population in Istanbul think that the foreigners cannot integrate in the city whereas this rate was only 9,3% in 2006. Among 71 different European cities that participated in the poll, Istanbul has experienced the biggest shift with a 30% increase.

The tension between host society and Syrian refugees has sometimes led to unfortunate events in different provinces. Here, it is important to note that public opinions vary in different regions mainly due to the ethnic and sectarian dimension of the issue. These incidents mostly arise based on rumors, such as a Syrian attacked a local or a Syrian was caught by police while committing a robbery4 5 6. Due to increasing number of similar incidents, the Ministry of Interior took action to prevent these rumors and published a statement that challenge the false allegations that link increased crime rates to Syrian refugees on social media. The statement on the website of MoI reads: “The ratio of criminal incidents involving the Syrians 4

https://www.cnnturk.com/turkiye/mersinde-cinayet-sonrasi-suriyeli-ailelere-saldiri

5 http://www.diken.com.tr/izmirde-suriyelilere-saldiri-500-multeci-mahalleyi-terk-etmek-zorunda- kaldi/ 6 http://www.gazeteduvar.com.tr/turkiye/2017/07/02/uskudarda-suriyeli-ailenin-evine-saldiri/

to the total number of incidents in Turkey is 1.32% per annum between 2014-2017. A large part of these incidents originate from disputes among themselves.�7 The false allegations and myths as such have a dramatic negative impact on the image of Syrians in Turkish public on the one hand; they cause Syrian refugees develop counter-stereotypes as reaction to how they are seen by the majority, on the other hand. These two dynamics significantly harm their level of social inclusion and integration in Turkey.

In addition to physical literacy and migration, this research focuses on the concept of identity.

Identities are the most important factors directly affecting the lives of individuals, in particular, and the routines of communities and the ways in which they perceive life, in general. Individuals and communities come together within a geographical location, country, and urban setting, for example, all of which are instrumental in creating identities. Other, more specific concepts, such as food, music, and clothing may also be included in the concept of identity, just as broader concepts such as language, religion, and race contribute to its formation. In this research, we throw a closer look at community centers such as Ad.dar in Istanbul on how it provides a safe ground for the immigrant children regarding identity related matters.

Identity plays an important role in such researches, because immigration is highly related with identity and reproduction of identity. Immigrants are leaving their country with their historic and regional identities which involves language, religion, music or cuisine. However, when they arrive to a new country, within time and according to built relations with host populations of the particular countries, their identities are shifting. They start to learn new languages, new cultures, music and cuisine. All of these factors are affecting their identities directly, especially children who are born or grew up in new lands are more sensitive to these effects and tend to create new identities through these new factors. With the help of identity literature, we believe that, we will have a better understanding of the impact of physical activities on Syrian refugees’ current situation in the Turkish context.

7 https://www.icisleri.gov.tr/basin-aciklamasi05072017

Salman Akhtar, as a psychoanalyst, provides us a great understanding of immigrant identity formation process under four tracks (from love or hate to ambivalence, from yesterday or tomorrow to today, from yours or mine to ours, and from near or far to optimal distance) (Akhtar 1999:77) that make it easier to understand how identity is produced among immigrants and how it affects the lives of people migrating in new lands. It is important to underline this process for better understanding the effects of physical activities on participant children.

According to Akhtar, identity is a concept that changes with generations. Identity construction can be said to continue throughout life. It evolves over time. It is rebuilt and shaped by the knowledge of past knowledge and the goals for the future.

We need to summarise Akhtar’s four tracks of identity here; first concept is “from love or hate to ambivalence.” Akhtar explains how people idealize good and bad object images. Changing external environment has significant effects on people’s lives. The capacity of people to adapt varies and has a direct impact on the mourning process in migration. Akhtar’s second concept is “ from near or far to optimal distance.” Here, Akhtar gives a definition of “distance” when in migration as being far from the homeland also in terms of being far away from a certain climate and landscape. According to Akhtar, this also leads to a decrease in self-confidence. Third, what Aktar means by the concept “from yesterday or tomorrow to today” is that especially - when someone runs away from a politically unstable situation, they tend to live in past; exiled people who leave their countries against their will continue to live in an idealized home country. This is not the case in our report, because most of the participant children are born in Turkey or too young to remember their homelands. Akhtar’s final concept is “from yours or mine to ours.” This tries to demonstrate how people are involved in a process of creating “me” and “we.” A while after immigrating to a new land, one would start to become aware of the similarities between other migrants who have the same background. Those customs begin with language, which is the most crucial for creating “we” in a migration context (Akhtar 1999).

These three fields of physical literacy, migration and identity have thus helped us understand the impact of bodily activities on refugee and host communities. In the following pages, we will have a closer look on how, for instance, through football, Syrian refugee children and young adults are reproducing their identities, and use that sport to support their uniqueness.

In some activities such as music, participants discovered a new language to express their feelings. Through martial arts participants said they became more confident towards the society. Both of the creative drama and contact improvisation helped to improve participants’ creativity and experience of teamwork. More commonly, all the bodily activities of “Your Movement is Free” program had an impact on reinforcing the feeling of “safe space” of each community centre among the participants.

METHODOLOGY “Your Movement is Free” project of BoMoVu association is coordinating a network of bodily activities instructors who share their knowledge and skills with the beneficiaries of three community centres in Istanbul (Ad.dar, Tarlabaşı Community Centre and Yusra). In Ad.dar and Yusra, the majority of beneficiary children have migration backgrounds from Syria, in Tarlabaşı community centre, beneficiary children are mainly inhabitants of Tarlabaşı neighborhood who are second and third generation internal migrants and a minority of migrants from Syria. We conducted semi-structured interviews with the children in all of these community centres and asked them about their experience of the activities and its impact on their lives. In total, we conducted 24 interviews with 24 different children. The children age ranged from 4 to 17. In Addar and Yusra, most of the children express themselves in Arabic with a minority speaking Turkish. In these cases, a Turkish-speaking participant child helped us with the translation. In some cases, some children preferred to speak Turkish at first, but decided to switch to Arabic during the interview because “they could express themselves much better in their mother tongue”. In Tarlabaşı community centre, all of the interviews were made in Turkish.

We prepared a sample questionnaire for semi structured interviews, however, we did not limit ourselves only with these questions and let the children talk about any other topics that was related with their experiences in activities. However, each question was asked to every single interviewee. Because this research was especially prepared with the intention to understand the social impact of the physical activities on the participants, we did not feel the need to ask them about their past and personal histories. In the case of Yusra, all of the children who attend to the activities are under 7 years old. Because of this factor, we had to ask our questions in an adapted way, however, for better understanding to their experiences we benefited a lot from the instructors’ observations on the long run.

Our questionnaire tried to examine their feelings about being a part of the particular activity in consideration of key concepts offered by studies on physical literacy and identity. The interviews showed how these literatures are helpful for understanding a certain reality in the field. We will discuss these findings in the conclusion part of the report.

We also used ethnographic research methods through participating to activities and taking notes while observing. We will also share our personal experiences and observations in this report. Finally, we also gathered observations from the instructors who witnessed the entire process experienced by the children. Their thoughts also helped feed this report.

We will now focus on the particular activities and their impacts on children through the interviews and the observations.

ACTIVITIES The activities observed for this report took place on a weekly basis in coordination with BoMoVu team. Each activity is run by an instructor and attended by at least one coordinator.

Different activities take place weekly in different centers:

- Story Telling, Percussion and juggling, and Nature Walks take place with Yusra.

- Rhythm, Photography, Creative Drama, and Hip-Hop take place with TarlabaĹ&#x;Äą.

- Football, Contact Improvisation, Music, Hip-Hop, and Martial Arts take place with Ad.dar.

While the gender balance was maintained in all activities, only one female participant attended football together with 14 males.

1. Football

“Pass the ball to your friend, she will transfer it to the center forward, surprise the defender and shoot!

Football is a team sport in which every single person is important. The key is to learn how to play together.

Football is like in life, you know you can do something, but you learn how much you need to be united to attain your objective.

Baran is a professional trainer and he will teach us to act together. Join us to this football activity for girls and boys, everybody is welcome.”

Among all activities, the analysis of football is in a privileged position because it has a larger literature in different academic fields such as sociology, anthropology or political sciences.

Football is a sector responsible for the migration of many young men in the world and it is one of the biggest sports industry in world with billions of Euros spent each year. In addition to its economic importance, football also plays a role in people’s lives. People shape their lives, according to football, games might affect their daily routines, and in some cases, people can take the decision to migrate from a country to another because of football. In sociology or anthropology there is a growing literature on football. They mostly focus on the football’s impacts on people’s lives.

Thus, football plays a crucial role in the collective identity creation process and what follows.

Sports, in general, and football, in particular, are important ways that individuals and communities separate themselves from others (McClancy 1996,p. 2). Given its clubs and all the features that are attributed to them, football plays a crucial role in this separation and identification process. While they cannot defeat the collective other in many areas of life, a group of people is able to defeat it in their own “houses,” i.e., stadiums, through football.

It is possible to consider football as a field of celebration and sublimation in teams where every fan group feels a sense of devotion; these identities may be local, religious, or ethnic (Coelho 1998, p.159). Fan clubs supporting football clubs attribute to them all the features they attribute to their collective selves. Football, especially in migration context and within minority groups, enables the disadvantaged to feel strong, sometimes invincible, and creates a cohesive feeling of solidarity. Through football, people have the chance to react to a lot of things that develop beyond their own control in social life and that put them at a disadvantage or result in their discrimination (Coelho 1998, p.159). Based on the idea that football is a game about social differences (Armstrong and Young 1999, p. 179), it is not surprising that immigrant and minority groups are intimately involved with football by adding an identity difference to these social differences. Christian Bromberger likens football to a drama game that embraces the fundamental problems of the modern world. Football contains the balance between individuality and team play, success and failure, struggle and destiny within itself.

Again, according to Bromberger symbolically, football is a drama representing the lack of luck for some and the happiness for some others at the same time (Bromberger 1993).

Similarly, football gives these communities concrete areas to defend. Stadiums are at the top of defensive values. The name of a team’s stadium, called “home” in almost every language,

is a good example of this. Home team supporters see football game as more than simply a game to be watched; they consider the place where it is played as sacred. Moreover, they feel that their team should not be defeated by “competitors” in their own home. For fans, stadiums are in the position of castles to be defended.

In our project, participants demonstrated some of these outcomes with their own words.

However, it’s not easy or even right to take them as a group of young people who express their national or ethnic identity through football, they only provide some clues for the future.

All participants in football activity underlined similar feelings during our interviews.

All the participants of the football activity are Syrian refugees aged from 13 to 35. The participants interviewed were aged from 13 to 17. They mostly live in the same neighbourhood and football is not the only place for them to come together, they also spend their free time together. Most of the participants are going to professional schools or not in the schooling system anymore, they are working in barber shops or textile industry. They are fluent in Turkish which was the language of the interviews.

All the participants in this activity said that they do not have much Turkish friends and when they do, they do not play football with them. They also underlined that they had bad experiences when trying to get in touch with other Turkish children. Participants of the activity say that Turkish children are nicknaming them and making jokes about their Turkish; “this is the reason why they prefer to spend time with Syrians”. Football has become a lifestyle for them, one of the children, Miran (14)8 said that” football is life for me, when I play football I feel free and separated from the rest of the world. That’s why I play football as often as can be, not only in the activity but also in streets, parks etc.” However, other interviewees underlined that, when they come to the football pitch for the activity they feel much more better. The main reason for them is the presence of their instructor Baran. According to them, Baran is a great figure of achievement, all of them said that they are learning a lot from him. Baran explains his first motives when he decided to be a part of the project with the following words: “I wanted to show children how to enjoy football with practicing in a structure. I also wanted to improve their football skills and improve their social skills as well”. Baran explains that after the project, he observed that children became more active in the team work. “They are more helpful, they help when someone falls down, they learned how to celebrate all together for a goal.” Baran also noticed some important changes in particular children, Musa is one of these children.

Musa is a child with obesity, when he start the football activity, he could not be an active part of the team. However, Baran said, “when I decided to put Musa as a goalkeeper, his commitment increased. He started to come every week and work hard”. Role model is a crucial topic to focus on, while Baran plays a pivotal role for that concept for the participant children, they also underlined that if there would a professional Syrian football player in Turkish leagues, that would be great motivation for the Syrian kids in the country, they said they can feel that ‘if some managed to do it, I can do it too’.

‘Excited’ is the most used word by the participants when they were asked to describe their feelings when coming to the activity. Participants also used the word of ‘hope’ while they answered the question ‘How you feel when you play football?’. They mainly feel in that way because football provides them a feeling of hope about their future, all the participants said they want to become professional football players if they can. Football is also highly related with physical development, all of the participants are underlining that they are aware of some significant changes in their bodies especially in their legs. They also said that they feel more ‘stronger’ and they like that feeling, especially because they say that they need to be strong in the outside world, hence football activities make them feel more confidence in themselves.

8

All names of interviewees have been changed.

2. Music

“Music can be very powerful to express our feelings and thoughts without language. Thanks to these lessons you can learn how to play a guitar, a percussion or a piano and you can learn how to read and write musical notes.

In these activities our aim is to have fun and making music together. You will be studying with Enzo who enjoys every side of music and is a famous reggae musician.”

Music, among other activities, is more related with feelings than other sports. However, it has similar effects on participants when we compare it to the rest of the activities in the project.

Like in other activities, music also does not require to speak the same language, moreover, it is a great way to create a new language between people.

Ad.dar is a special place for participants, it can provide a familiar environment for children and adults. Every Saturday, people cook and eat together and the doors of the community center are open to everyone. This place provides a multicultural environment for everybody.

Music participants have the additional chance to work with the music instructor Enzo who is also a refugee in Turkey. For participant children, he became more than a teacher, he turns into an older friend who has similar experiences with them. They create a new language with their piano and guitars during the activities.

The music group consists in a wide range of participants from different ages, there are also adults who take part in the activity. However, children are always the main participants of the activity. There are some role model participants for younger children within the group.

Amena (15) is one of them, she is a Syrian refugee who lives in Istanbul since several years.

Her parents are supportive, every Saturday her father and mother come to the community centre with her and watch her during her performance with Enzo. They also sometimes record their daughter’s performance while playing and singing.

Amena’s relation with the activity provides us a great example. Amena as a Syrian and Enzo as a Congolese refugee in Turkey create together a new language through music. Enzo migrated to Turkey from the Democratic Republic of Congo. He says his immigration has similarities with Syrian refugees. His personal story, as he said, gives him a great understanding of participant children: “they don’t only need bread or money, they also need hope, and music gives them hope, I know it because of my own experience”. He also underlined that, because of the music activity, all of the dedicated participants learned to play guitar and “they didn’t know anything about it when they first started”. During the activity, Enzo and Amena are playing guitar and singing Turkish and Arabic songs. Music gives a chance to invite a new language among them that only they can speak. Amena tells us, “music is everything for me, it’s more important than anything in my life after my family”. She stresses that Enzo’s support and mentorship makes her feel that she will become better at music with time. Similarly to football participants, Amena also said that music gives her a ‘hope’ for her future, she underlined that she wants to study music and become a singer.

Amena also gives a great example for younger participants of the music activity. They watch carefully when she plays and sings a song, they imitate her acts. We can see the importance of the role model figure in this instance as well. Other participants who answered our questions were also emphasizing that music helps them to get away from the real world. Participants are also saying that they like to be a part of the community centre, they are not beneficiaries only and music activities make them feel like that. When they arrive to the community centre, they try to attend to as much activities as they can. In the music group, most of the participants say that through the activity they met new people and became friends and see each other outside as well. They also underlined that they learn a lot of new things in the music group and some of them also show their new knowledge to their friends who do not attend to the activity.

Participants find a chance to make new friends through music both in the community centre and outside world thanks to the knowledge they earned from the activity. All of the participants also said that they invite their friends from their schools to attend the activity. This also shows us their relations with the centre and the activity itself. We can basically say that music makes the participants socially stronger. They also say they feel more relaxed after the activity.

3. Hip-Hop

“Hip-hop is the dance of the movement of liberation.

The lyrics, the rhythm, the beats, the moves; all is about a revolution. Let your body express the anger of injustice, find your own way to tell your opinion, and learn about the culture of rebellion from Blacks in the U.S. Göker and Nazlı will teach your body to let the world know what you think.”

In hip-hop activities, participant children find a unique chance to express themselves by their words and movements through music and dance. This activity takes place both in Tarlabaşı and Ad.dar community centres but with different instructors. Participant children also learned some basic skills about rhythm and how to use their words accordingly with it during the process of creating a song. In Tarlabaşı, Hip-Hop activity’s instructor Göker provides a wide range of learnings to the participants. His professional dance career helps him to explain children how they can use their body in harmony with the rhythm. All of the participants underlined that Göker is a great teacher for them and they learn a lot from him. For instance, when the participant children are waiting for the activity with Göker to start, they make jokes to him, and say words in hip-hop rhythm and ask him how it sounds.

In this hip-hop group, participants’ ages vary between 12 and 15, there were some younger participants but the core group of the activity are in these ages. Participants underlined that they had a chance to meet new people through this activity and some of them see each other outside the community centre. In Tarlabaşı community centre, unlike in Ad.dar, children can spend time in there only during the activity period, after the activity they have to leave the space for another activity. In this regard, children’s attitude on continuing to see each other outside requires more efforts. Also, they can only keep sharing their activity experiences in the outside world. They all say that they keep practicing when they are at home or even at school.

Hip-hop gives that chance to the participants, they can still write songs or practice dancing outside the community centre. As we mentioned, hip-hop gives them a chance to express their feelings with music. For instance, Göker asked the children to write words in rhythm with a given beat. When they started to say their words, we realized that all of them talked about their lives, their daily struggles and their neighbourhood. All the participant children are living in Tarlabaşı district which is highly criminalized by the media and public opinion. All the children are aware of the perception of their neighborhood in wider society. In their songs, they underlined that this place is there real place of living, their homes. Through the hip-hop activity, they found a chance to speak about their feelings on wider society’s perception about their homes and themselves as the inhabitants. They find a way to prove themselves against prejudices of the outside.

Tarlabaşı community centre plays a pivotal role for children who live in the area, all the participants said that they are coming to the centre since a couple of years. They tried to participate to as much activities as they can. They consider the centre as a safe playground that provides new experiences to them. Ayşe (12), one of the participant of the activity,

underlines that “Tarlabaşı community centre is the funniest place in the area and I go there running”. She also said that some of her feelings changed since she started hip-hop, she is more relaxed and understanding person now and she learns things easily. All of the hip-hop participants underlined that they love to be in the centre and they love to play with each other.

They say that through physical activities they become more ‘stronger’ and tend to get tired less easily. They said they feel relaxed after the activities, and more understanding to their friends and families. They also invite other friends from school to the centre, this situation tells us the importance of the centre in the area.

Mehmet (13), one of the core members of the hip-hop activity, says “we spend a lot of time in the streets, we play the ‘mafia’ games”. However, he also loves to come to the community centre which makes him feel more energetic even while he is on his way to the community centre. “The center is never boring, we can always find something funny to do there.” About the activity, “I feel much more energy and relax after the activity, I feel exhausted after the activity and I want to rest a while”. He also says that he is writing hip-hop songs all alone after the activity. “I will definitely become a volunteer in the community centre in the future.”

Mehmet is a good example for this activity, he is also one of the most dedicated participants of the activity, his statements about the activity are mostly shared among other participants.

Kerem (12), another active participant of the activity, supports Mehmet’s words saying “I like to express myself with my own words, and to learn how to use the words.”

Hip-hop activity also takes place in Ad.dar community centre with Syrian refugees. Nazlı is the instructor in there and she worked with the children really closely during this period. She said her main purpose was to improve their understanding and realization of dance and hip-hop culture. She also says “I want to help them to express themselves through different tools”.

Nazlı underlines that she had some plans about what she will do during her activity but then participants changed her feelings and thoughts about her plans dramatically. According to Nazlı, “the most significant impact of the activity is that participants’ body coordination improved, they become more relaxed and confident with time, especially women participants became more dedicated”. Nazlı observed that women participants were feeling afraid of being watched by others at the beginning, but with time they became more careless about this.

4. Martial Arts

“There are many Martial arts in the world and they all come from a very old tradition for self-defense and learning to control your movements. During our trainings, we learn how to concentrate and to have control over the feelings of violence and aggression to transform them into power and equilibrium.

Come and join Gizem and Talin to learn Taekwondo and Kickboxing. All the girls and boys are invited to have fun and learn the secrets of power.”

Martial Arts activity takes place in Ad.dar community centre, with mainly Syrian refugee children. It has a different impact on the children who consider the activity as one of the most popular in the community centre. A lot of participants from all ages attend the martial arts regularly. Martial Arts is a critical activity for children because it involves physical contact and also acts of violence. Gizem and Talin are the instructors of this activity. As Gizem shares her knowledge about Taekwondo, Talin shows moves of Kickboxing to the participants.

According to Gizem’s observations, at the beginning participants only wanted to join this activity because they want to be stronger in fights. Most of the children, Gizem adds, are facing bullying in their social lives, and they found this activity as a tool that they can use in their terrible experiences if they needed. Gizem says, “this can be problematic, this is not an activity that makes them to ready for fights, I spent time on to explain this to the participants”.

About women participants, Gizem says most of them wanted to continue but some of the women changed their minds because of other people’s ideas about them. They think that they became more masculine and their friends told them so, thus they decided to quit.

Martial arts has also different effects according to gender. Male participants, especially younger ones, love to be a part of this activity and do not share older females’ concerns about the activity. Male participants underlined that boxing gives them a technique when they need to defend themselves in the outside world. Unfortunately, some children said that, they sometimes face fights due to discriminatory attitudes towards refugees. Marten(10), says that “other children in the school are not like the Syrians at all”, she talks about mistreatments from her fellow students and claims that the principal of the school does only punish Syrians.

In such cases, Marten says that she feels weak against other children. However, even though she explains that she does not prefer to fight, after this activity she feels more strong and selfconfident about herself.

Marten also underlined the importance of the community centre for her, she said that they can play in there freely with her friends, and learn new things, she said she is not learning anything in her school. She also said that she feels happy and excited while she is on the road to the community centre. She is also aware of changes in her body due to practicing martial arts, and she wants to become a professional boxer. Layal (11) is the best friend of Marten, she also talks about how she feels discriminated at school. For her too, martial arts makes her feel stronger. However, unlike Marten, Layal has Turkish friends with whom she gets along well. She mentions about the importance of the sports activities at Ad.dar relating it to the fact

that in her school “physical education classes are not working, the teachers do not let us go out and play with the others.” She can only participate to physical activities at the community centre and we can basically observe that she is one of the most energetic children in the centre.

Male participants of similar ages are also showing similar reflexes when we talk about their martial arts experiences. Rifat (11), one of the most dedicated participants of the activity, says he loves martial arts because it makes him stronger and he can beat other boys when it is necessary. He is going to school where all of his friends in school are Turkish and he also admits he does not have any problems with Turkish children.

One of the former female participants of the martial arts activity, Aisha (21), is a worker in textile industry. She is coming to Ad.dar as much as she can, almost every day after work.

She has friends both from the community centre and work. At work, most of her friends are from Iraq, but she does not have much Turkish friends. She likes the Turkish volunteers in the community centre because she can feel their love and respect. She is coming mainly for Turkish and English activities to the centre. She was attending the martial arts activity but after a while some people told her that she became more masculine and she decided to stop doing it even though she liked to participate and it made her stronger. These activities makes her feel “I am doing things I thought I was not able to do before”, this is the main reason for her to come to these activities. She also invites her friends to come to the centre and learn with her, and some of her friends started participating to different activities.

In a nutshell, martial arts activity makes the participants feel more confident with themselves and stronger both physically and mentally towards the outside world. Especially for younger children, their only focus is to become stronger. At this age, girls are less pressurized to care about their body image in relation with their gender role. Finally, we can also say that children feel discriminated in the society and that martial arts helps them to fight back both metaphorically and realistically.

5. Rhythm

“Do you like music? Do you want to compose a song with your body and basic materials which you see around? Rhythm is the easiest way of making music.

In this activity you will be together with your friends as a musician. We invite boys and girls to join us to practice with Hasan.”

At the rhythm activity, participant children learn how to make sounds piece by piece and turn these sounds into a music at the end of the lesson. This activity takes place in Tarlabaşı community centre. Hasan, the instructor of this activity, has a special background, he was also from Tarlabaşı and he also used to be a participant of the activities in the community centre.

He says he came to the center during 10 years and learned to play music there since he was 8 years old. After he grew up, he decided he wants to be a volunteer at the center and help other children like him. Eren (13) is a dedicated participant of the rhythm activity, he says he has a special relationship with Hasan, and because of him, he also thinks of becoming a volunteer in the community centre in the future.

Hasan, unlike other instructors, is more disciplined in his classes, he does not allow children to get distracted. However, his discipline does not seem to have any negative effects on participant children, they accept Hasan’s rules in his class and they try hard to understand his lessons. In every activity, Hasan teaches them how to catch and follow the particular rhythms with clapping and hitting the ground. Children spend quite a lot of physical effort and mental effort during the activity, because they also need to focus on the music and catch the rhythm, Hasan’s discipline is helpful for children to focus.

Atakan (13) also underlined the importance of Hasan for him, he says that Hasan gives them ‘happiness’. While he is participating to the rhythm activity, he says he feels more confident to do something, because he feels that he knows how to use his body properly. He says, “I teach to my friends who do not come to the centre things I learn at the Rhythm activity. (...) I prefer to come to the community centre instead of staying at home playing computer games”.

He underlines that he is aware of the changes in his body, he feels more ‘stronger’ and his muscles have developed.

Nuh (11) is the little brother of Eren. He also shares similar thoughts about the activity, he says “rhythm is my favourite activity in the community centre because it involves music”. He also likes to use his body while he is practicing music. He says he feels significant changes in his body, he answered our ‘physical changes’ question before we asked him, and he said he is much more stronger now. The words he uses to describe his feelings are much related with ‘relaxing’ and ‘excitement’. He says he feels these emotions while he is attending the rhythm activity. He also says that he is also practicing rhythm while he is at home and even sometimes at school. He says he always tries to teach his learnings to other people. Nuh, if he has the opportunity, wants to be a professional rhythm performer.

Rhythm activity gives the participant children a chance to use their bodies with more control and more effectively. They learn synchronization listening to the sounds, and acting in coordination to the sounds. They also learn acting in a group and harmony, working together and supporting each other’s efforts.

6. Creative Drama

“Creative drama is a space we create for your expression and to let your imagination fly. When you enter this room, you can become an animal, an object, or someone else!

Enter this world where everybody has a special place and where we team up to re-create the world we want.”

Creative drama takes place in Tarlabaşı community centre and the instructor of the activity is Başak. In this activity, Başak tries to improve some skills of the participant children. These are mainly their creativity, group working, harmony and trust. Every week, Başak uses different methods and activities to achieve her goal. With this activity, children are taught through stories and games how to work and create together.

According to Başak’s personal observations, “all of the children improved their self-expression skills, they started to ask more questions and to criticise.” There used to be Syrian children participants who had to leave Istanbul at some point, Başak says that the relations between them and the children fromTarlabaşı improved with time; “ at the beginning, they avoided to hold hands but this kind of attitudes disappeared with time.” Some children showed great improvements, Ceren is one of them according to Basak. Ceren tends to change her mind according to other children, she would avoid to express her feelings and thoughts, Başak said, however that she became more confident to express herself.

In our observations, we can mainly say that children are highly interested in creating new games. There are a few rules that they can not do while they create a story or a game, it should not be offensive to anyone, it should not harm the environment and it should not harm themself. Otherwise, they have all the free environment to create new things, this gives them a great chance to think and work together. This activity also focuses on the participant’s emotions and teaches them to express these emotions such as happiness, fear or excitement.

Muhammed (10) is one of the participants of the activity. He made many new friends at the activity. He likes to be a part of the activity which he describes as a “playground”. He says “Başak makes me happy because she cares about us and teaches us new games. Muhammed also plays these games he learns from the activity in his home and with his other friends at school.

One of the girl participants says she always wants to be in the community centre, and she attends to any kind of activity she can, but her favourite one is creative drama because she always learns new games in there. She is also aware of the body changes in herself, she feels more stronger and energetic, she says, “before this activity, I was not an energetic person at all, but after this activity, I always want to do something and play new games.”

In this activity, participant children found a chance to improve their creativity, working with others and expressing themselves. They also create their own stories and games, this gives them self-confidence to speak in a group and share their ideas about something. They learned their ideas can shape and change in their lives and listen to other’s ideas and respect them.

7. Contact Improvisation

“In contact improvisation, two or more people dance in a fun and improvised way. In this type of dance, movements are not determined in advance, but occur when two bodies touch. Contact improvisation includes many clues about life, such as sharing, trust, cooperation, listening, opening up space for oneself and others, and equality.

This activity aims to open a safe space for girls and women. Dilek will share her experiences with you.“

This activity takes place in Ad.dar community centre and the instructor of the activity is Dilek.

Only girls and adult women participate to this activity. The main purpose of the activity is to support participants to improve their body awareness, working in a group and with a particular partner and improve awareness of how to use their muscles accordingly. Dilek explains that “my main purpose is to help participants to improve their body awareness thought physical movements, and also self-awareness and creating secure and trust based relationships.” In her observations, participants became more confident to express their feelings, and their self-awareness increased and they became more social. Dilek also says that their perceptions on home topics have changed dramatically: “For instance, they start to think differently about ‘success’ and ‘failure’. They explored their physical capacity and that makes them more comfortable and confident.” Due to this confidence, their relation with the outside world is also changed: For example, Dilek says that at the beginning of the activity, if their parents or friends participated as a spectator, they would feel more shy and avoid to participate to the physical acts. “However, with time, they started to care less about spectators.” As the researcher myself, my presence as a man might have affected the content but all the participants performed all the movements without problem.

In this activity, there were a wide range of participants from different ages, but the most dedicated participants are all adult women. Every week, Dilek focuses on different aspects of Contact Improvisation. For instance, “one week we work on the awareness of making steps and on listening to the partners, another week, we work on giving our weight, back to back and neck to neck with the partner”. After each activity, Dilek asks the participants how they feel, she mostly hears “better” and “more relaxed”.

When young adult women told to Dilek they are suffering from back aches, Dilek shaped the activity accordingly. When younger girls attend to the activity, the exercices are also shaped towards their abilities. Dilek mostly focuses on the eye contact practices, leadership and following exercises. Activities also focus on some feelings such as the ones procured through touching each other.

Participants declare they are really benefiting from the activity: “I know better now how to use my body.” Some participants say that they also practice some of the moves in their homes to relax.

They also say that Dilek is important for them because she is caring and shows them tricks to relax. In this group, ‘relax’ is the most common word among the participants who describe their feelings. Adult women show to be more interested in the relaxing part of the activity instead of fun. Some participants also say that they are better at communication after this activity.

Ranim (18) is one of the most dedicated participants of the Contact Improvisation activity. She lives in Turkey since 2014, she comes to Ad.dar everyday and studies English, Turkish and French. She says she loves to be in Ad.dar, almost all of her friends are people from the centre and she feels happy when she is in Ad.dar, calling it a ‘primary house’. She says “this activity is my favourite one because now I know better how to talk to people and communicate with them.” Ranim also says that thanks to this activity, “I understand my mum better now.” This discourse can be considered together with the idea about contact improvisation being a great tool for rethinking the self, the other, and the relations. This statement from Ranim is even more striking when thinking about daughter-mother relationships and all complexities it beholds. Here, Ranim talks about a crucial “other” in the existence of “self”.

With the Contact Improvisation activity, we basically observe that it gives participants selfconfidence, better communication skills, body awareness, working in a group and expressing themselves in a group both in verbal and body language.

8. Photography

“Photography is a perspective on the world that you can use to show to others how you see all the things that are around you.

Damla is with you to help you learn to use the machine, to use the light, to frame the image and use this realistic way to have your own look on the world.

This machine is the keeper of the stories, big and little, secret and historic stories. Tell your own.”

This activity is taking place in Tarlabaşı community centre and the instructor of the activity is Damla. The main purpose of the activity is to help children improve their perceptions of their own neighbourhood and transfer this new perception to photographies they take.

During this activity, children and Damla decide together on the the week’s topic before going outside. Some topics are: graffitis, old buildings, green and nature, reflections, details, or pipes and wires. After this decision is taken, the children accompanied with adults and Damla go outside and take photos. After the walk, all the children come back to the community centre and tell about their experience. They also explain why they shot that particular photo and their feelings about it. Through this part of the session, we can understand their perceptions on their own livings, their homes and daily lives.

For instance, one of the participant children, Mert (12), took a photo of a graffiti saying “Did Tarlabaşı’s problems stressed you up?”. Mert explains that he took this photo because it is not despising against the neighborhood. Damla quotes Mert saying “people come to watch us, to take our pictures, as if we were a place of visit. They also take my pictures, I do not enjoy this.”

This is only one example among others showing how photography activities help the children recover the image of their neighborhood.

9. Activities with children under 7 Years Old

Three of the activities with “Your Movement is Free” program take place at Yusra community center where the participants are aged from 4 to 7. Because of their small age and the fact that the same children participate to all the activities, we decided to talk about their experience in general about the activities they attend. Also, we mainly share our observations of the impact on children of the activities.

9.1. Story Telling

“Imagine a poor king in a very very far place, and a river that sings songs. Imagine a dog who can speak with humans, and a mice in love with a cat.

Merve and Ladin are taking you to a world where everything is possible, where you can touch the sun and speak with the wolves!

Come and let’s listen to tales together, let the stories take us very very far away!”

During the story telling activity, every week the instructor Merve tells participant children a different tale. After the tale, Merve asks the children to draw pictures of the story and the characters in it. However, according to our observations, we can say that children are not only ‘listeners’ of the tales; they like to participate in it. When Merve uses objects and toys, children become more interested in the stories. Because of their age, they always want to be in motion. During this activity, children’s creativity is improved and they also learn sharing with each other. Merve observed that kids who would not share their toys before started to play together with time.

According to Merve’s observations, “children are more interested in acting than in listening, this is not surprising”. However, when she combines both listening and acting in her activity, children become more excited to be a part of it. One of the participants was very shy at the beginning and became more extrovert with time. Fatima, another participant of the activity demonstrated similar changes of behavior “she became one of the most dominant figure in the group.

9.2. Percussion and Juggling

“Clap! Clap! Hush! Da da da da! We have music instruments and colorful balls. We will use them to make music and have fun.

Hüseyin will teach us how we can use those instruments and our bodies for making music together. We will have fun! Come and join us!”

In percussion and juggling activity, children receive tools to improve their motor skills. At the same time, they also become aware of their own bodies and creativity. In this activity, children are mostly always in motion. Through this activity, they also learn how to act in a group and with synchronization. In some weeks, when the weather is good, the instructor Hüseyin takes the children to the parks and arranges the activities in there. In such weeks, not surprisingly, children became more energetic and dedicated to the activity. However, inside the community centre, sometimes, because of distracting objects, children concentration gets lost easily.

Hüseyin says that he wants to help children to improve their self and body awareness, their physical coordination and their communication skills. He observed obvious changes; “children’s perception of rhythm improved dramatically, couple of children who are shy of talking became more confident to speak and explain themselves.”

9.3. Nature Walks

“Let’s go outside. Let’s discover forests, trees, flowers, and animals. Nature has its own language and we can hear it if we listen well! İstanbul is not only the streets and the cars, it is also green, parks and forests.

Come with us and discover how much freedom nature can give you.”

In addition to these activities Nature Walks took place now and then with the same group of children. During the nature walks, it was observed that the children were excited to discover the new place they were in and provided some tools from their surroundings for this purpose. For example, in one of the walks, the children made a house from branches with the encouragement from the instructor. They had to watch each other’s speed and tried to move together. These outputs help to demonstrate that home image has been reproduced in different places, in accordance with the aims of the activity.

CONCLUSION During our research, we could observe different aspects of the benefits of physical activities mainly towards children. Physical activities mostly gives them self-confidence, trust and the feeling of being part of a group. These activities also provide physical improvements to them. On the other hand, all the children who attend the activities also take physical education in schools, but they are mainly concerned about the lack of structure. We had here the opportunity to have a close follow up of all participants’ improvements. We specifically focused on the words that participants used to express their feelings about the activities. Even though interviews were mainly in Turkish, we sometimes asked the participants to express themselves in their mother tongue in Arabic or Kurdish to better understand the reason of the usage to that particular words. According to this, we can say that most common word for describing their feeling about the activities was ‘happiness’ and any other feeling related with happiness. They say that they feel happy to participate to the activities, to be in the particular community centre and to work with the instructors. The second most common word heard was ‘stronger’; all of the participants in every community centre, even in Yusra with under 7 years olds, said that they feel stronger after these activities. Many participants also mentioned about the improvement of their ‘communication skills’; they explained that now they feel more confident to communicate with other people.

The duration of the project was also an important topic, during the activities, we could have a chance to observe the improvements and changes in participants, however, if the activities would be longer, we surely could have observed more about children’s physical awareness and improvements. Such activities can be beneficial for short periods, but if these periods are longer benefits will increase for all the participants.

We also found a chance to observe improved relations of participants with the place where the activities are carried out. In Ad.dar, for instance, space became more than just a place of gathering, as one of the participants says: “ it became a ‘home’” for most of the people.

Especially for the children, Ad.dar is a safe place where they can just be ‘children’ and play how they want. The community centre seems to become a place where everyone can live their identities without any restriction and even reproduce it. Yusra also plays a similar role for the children. Yusra also provides children a place where they can act how they like and speak in their language freely. Tarlabaşı community centre is different in the way that the administrative side of the center is more visible here. In Tarlabaşı, children mostly come there for participating to the activities, after their activities they leave the centre.

In a nutshell, we can say that, during our project, we could have the chance to evaluate that physical activities have impacts on people both socially and for themself. Their feeling descriptions on their relationship with community centres in Yusra and Addar, showed that how they tend to live their identities and languages in specific places. They also showed us, discrimination within the society by their own experiences and how these attitudes affects them and shape their observation of physical expectations from themselves.

SUGGESTIONS As shown in this report, there are various positive aspects of physical activities for refugees and people from the host society.

We maintain the importance of physical education in and outside schools but we also think that the target of all activities should behold the scopes of physical literacy.

For refugees as well as for other displaced people, sports and bodily activities seem to play a central role in people’s self-conception and relations with their body and environment. We vehemently encourage all NGOs and other supporting bodies to consider physical activities as a tool for social empowerment.

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Acknowledgement

We would like to express our gratitude to the instructors of all our activities without whom none of these outcomes could have been realised, and to the community centers who trusted us enough to cooperate with us.

Thanks the patience and the skills of these instructors, each activity is special. We benefited from their observations for this research, especially for small age groups activities. Many thanks to Enzo, Dilek, Hüseyin, Nazlı, Talin, Gizem, Göker, Başak, Damla, Hasan, Merve, Ladin and Baran for their presence and support on the field. Ad.dar, Yusra and Tarlabaşı Community Center opened their doors for all processes of this research and we are grateful for their hospitality.

Moreover, our biggest gratitude is for the participants. They shared their thoughts and feelings with us and this research could exist because of these conversations. We know how valuable this permission is and we tried to keep this responsibility in our mind during the writing process.

Project financed by a grant from Switzerland through the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation SDC to BoMoVu.

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