Connect for Impact project, implemented by Anadolu Kültür, was designed to bring together rights-based civil society organizations, cultural and artis institutions, and municipal units in Eskişehir, Adana, Mersin, and Diyarbakır. The project aimed to encourage cross-sectoral collaborations against discrimination and to explore the possibilities of collective struggle through creative interventions addressing locally prominent forms of discrimination in each city, shaped by their unique dynamics.

Implemented between June and December 2024 with the support of the German Federal Foreign Office and Anadolu Kültür's own resources, the project's main activities included Capacity Building and Idea Development Workshops in each project city—bringing together representatives from civil society organizations, cultural actors, and local government units—alongside Online Mentorship, Local Collaboration Activities, and a Harvest Meeting that convened representatives of institutions that had successfully carried out local collaborations.

The overall objective of the project was to strengthen the relatively limited impact of various institutions' efforts in areas such as combating discrimination and ensuring equal access to rights through a cross-sectoral approach, and to create space to experience the transformative potential of collaboration in different contexts.

While there are existing examples of collaborations between local governments and cultural institutions or between local governments and civil society, it is noteworthy that, especially in a context where the space for anti-discrimination work is increasingly shrinking, examples where all three sectors come together and produce work toward a shared goal of change remain quite limited.

Another distinctive aspect of the project was its proposal to move forward through artistic expression and production under the concept of "creative intervention"—particularly as a way to address locally identified rights violations or forms of intersectional discrimination—while also taking a step toward challenging entrenched assumptions that cross-sectoral collaboration is either too difficult or ineffective.

The first step of the project involved reaching out to cultural and artistic actors and civil society organizations in the project cities to learn about their goals and areas of work, while also identifying the priority areas outlined in the strategic plans of local governments and the sectors they aimed to collaborate with.

In the second step, city-specific workshops were designed with a focus on building collaboration capacity. These workshops aimed to bring together local actors from different sectors—each with distinct working methods and institutional cultures—to facilitate the identification of shared social, economic, cultural, and political issues they wished to address. The workshops also helped participants detect common societal problems emerging at the intersection of their target audiences, forms of discrimination, and the rights-based issues they sought to highlight, with a particular focus on the increasingly pressing forms of intersectional discrimination unique to their local context.

The next stage involved forming working groups composed of representatives from the three sectors. These groups were tasked with taking action to address the issues identified in their localities by developing an activity plan, assigning roles, setting a timeline, and choosing a method of creative intervention.

From the very beginning; to reach the target groups that teams would engage with locally and ensuring their participation in planned activities, to conduct visits to artists or stakeholder institutions to be included in the creative intervention teams, and finally to concretize and implement the activities, the support of the Anadolu Kültür team and project experts, both online and in person, played a vital role.

In the next phase, representatives from different institutions across the three sectors came together in each city to identify issues that affected one or more target groups and to collectively work toward addressing these social problems. The goal here was to strengthen institutions' ability to integrate their expertise with others', enhance their capacity to raise awareness—both within their teams and in the broader community—and, most importantly, to expand their ability to take action by harnessing the transformative power of artistic expression. Each team was supported to implement a “local collaboration against discrimination” project.

The broader aim was to enable participating institutions to “connect fo impact” to deepen intersectoral dialogue and experience-sharing, and to diversify their capacities, knowledge, and skills for collaborative action to enhance impact.

With these goals, the Connect for Impact project successfully supported six cross-sectoral collaboration activities during its seven-month implementation period across four cities. These activities addressed prominent local forms of discrimination and/or barriers to rights faced by different groups and aimed to raise awareness and bring these issues to public attention. Each local collaboration sought to make a meaningful impact on its specific target group, broaden its reach across various segments of society, and, ultimately, deepen its influence toward decision-makers. Throughout, equal emphasis was placed on both the substantive issues being addressed and the increased awareness of the power of collaboration and solidarity to foster impactful local action.

Adana

A series of activities were carried out in Adana with the aim of supporting young women’s access to and participation in artistic production, culminating in the exhibition "Being Inside". The program began with visits to the studios of independent artists living and working in Adana, where 19 young women from diverse socio-economic backgrounds and life experiences engaged in conversations around art-making.

This was followed by a city walk through second-hand shops in the heart of Adana’s old bazaar, focusing on urban memory and the collection of found materials. The process culminated in a three-day collage workshop led by independent artist Ekin Keser, during which participants combined the materials they had gathered with items they brought from their own lives.

The collaboratively produced works were later exhibited at Kun Art Space, one of Adana’s leading contemporary art venues.

Diyarbakır

The Well-being in the Fight Against Discrimination: Local Network Development Workshop led to the formation of the Well-being Network Project Group, which—hosted and coordinated by the municipality—organized a two-day workshop series to assess local well-being needs.

The aim of the workshops was to reflect on well-being policies within local government structures and public services that center dignity, equality, care, and solidarity. Based on the outcomes of the workshops, the working group aims to develop concrete policy recommendations that respond to local needs and to design a project that will ensure the sustainability of well-being-oriented efforts.

Also in Diyarbakır, the Well-being Exchange Program supported a collective empowerment process in which civil society, municipal units, and cultural and artistic actors provided mutual support at the local level. The program included eight different well-being-focused activities, ranging from Cycling for Women’s Well-being Gatherings and Pelvic Floor Workshops to Rhythm and Music Workshops and a session titled A Decolonial Perspective on Everyday Life through Traditional Kurdish Clothing.

Eskişehir

In Emek Neighborhood, a group of women who were introduced to a professional camera for the first time took part in a series of workshops on themes such as gender, urban participation, and camera and filming techniques. Following these workshops, they collaboratively produced a video in which they shared the challenges they face as women living in a marginalized neighborhood and aimed to amplify the voices of other women in their community.

In April, they presented their film and shared their experiences from the process with a broad audience that included representatives from local municipalities and women from other neighborhoods.

Also in Eskişehir, a young artist solidarity network was fostered through a nine-day open studio program at Çekirdek Eskişehir, where 24 independent artists and arts collectives came together to engage in a shared production process. Each participant created and exhibited works focused on a specific theme of discrimination they had chosen, contributing to a collective exploration of social issues through art.

The process was further enriched by thematic talks and experience-sharing sessions with artists from İzmir and Eskişehir, aiming to strengthen the local artistic network. The resulting exhibition "Az Öte" took place between December 28, 2024 and January 5, 2025, and attracted strong participation from local stakeholders. In addition, the artists produced a documentary film capturing the collective production process, and a comprehensive exhibition catalogue featuring all artworks and accompanying texts was published.

Mersin

In Atgirmez Neighborhood, art-focused workshops were held with children living in seasonal agricultural areas and facing multiple layers of deprivation. In these workshops, children expressed their dreams of accessing education by designing scarecrows, which were then transformed into symbolic monuments to raise awareness around this issue.

The project culminated on April 23rd with a public exhibition titled "Scarecrows Dreaming of the Future" featuring the children’s sculptures, informational booklets, and videos documenting the process. In this sense, the project offered a powerful example of how local governments, civil society, and cultural actors can be mobilized to collaborate in advocating for the right to quality education for children living and working in seasonal agricultural environments.

In each of these collaboration activities supported by Online Mentorship, active involvement of NGOs, art institutions, and local governments was carefully ensured. In every city, cooperation groups were established, and their activity ideas, goals, and methods were developed through intensive joint work during the Capacity Building and Idea Development Workshops.

We concluded the project with the Harvest Meeting held at Nesin Mathematics Village, which brought together 26 representatives from Eskişehir, Adana, Mersin, and Diyarbakır. During this three-day gathering, local collaboration experiences in combating discrimination were shared, and in-depth discussions were held about the initiatives carried out in each city.

We organized sessions to evaluate the challenges and advantages of working together as equal partners among local government units, civil society organizations, independent artists, and cultural institutions across the four cities. Additionally, we reflected on how three-sector collaborations in each city can be sustained and further developed.

Moreover, given the increasingly difficult context for rights-based work within civil society, we discussed ways to strengthen intercity, institutional, and cross-sector solidarity opportunities to collectively address the shared challenges.