Turkish island home to well-established Armenian summer camp

Turkish island home to well-established Armenian summer camp

Saturday, August 7, 2010

VERCİHAN ZİFLİOĞLU

ISTANBUL - Hürriyet Daily News

The summer camp of the Armenian community in Kınalıada has kept its doors open every summer for the past five decades. As members of the Armenian community slowly migrate to other countries, the camp receives only half the number of children that it used to host. The camp administration wants to host children from Armenian families that are in need of assistance but is stumbling on internal regulations

The summer camp is open for children ages 4 to 14.

Istanbul’s Princes' Islands are known for their cosmopolitan culture, as they are often frequented by the city’s non-muslim minority members, with some even owning summer houses on the islands. Kınalıada is the one mostly prefered by Turkey’s 50,000 Armenians. In addition to the summer residence of the Armenian Patriarch, a summer camp has been opening its doors to Armenian children each year for at least the last five decades.

The summer camp, constructed in the 1960’s under the initiative of then Patriarch Shinorhk Kalustyan, hosts children of families with low incomes and who need assistance.

The camp’s status is different to those of the other schools of non – muslim communities. “The camp is not tied to the Ministry of Education. It belongs to the Foundation of the school of Karagözyan Orphanage,” Zevan Çavuşyan from the camp’s administration told the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review last week. “We only need the consent of the Island Municipality to open the camp each summer. It is the only one among non – Muslim community schools to have this status,” said Çavuşyan, president of the administrative board of the camp.

Run by a 12 member administrative board, the camp is open to children between the ages of 4 and 14 and the camps dozens of personnel include medical doctors and pedagogues. The camp has also started accepting an increasing number of children from Turkish – Armenian couples over the last few years.

One of the camp administration’s main ambitions is to host the children of Armenian families that need assistance, but they can not fulfill this ambition because of certain regulations.

"Although we are not under the authority of Education Ministry, when it comes to the issue of children from Armenia we have to abide to the regulations on minority schools. We can therefore only accept the children of Armenian families that are citizen of Turkey,” said Çavuşyan.

The camp hosts 130 children

The archives show that during its first years, the camp used to host more than 250 children each year from all over Turkey.

Nowadays, that number has decreased by as much as half.

"A significant number of community members pave migrated to different countries. Now finding an orphan is nearly impossible,” said Çavuşyan.

The camp will host around 130 children this summer. "The camp continues until the end of September. We start with 130 children but we might end up with around 90. Sometimes we send those minors who can not get adopted back,” he said.

Another aim of the camp’s administration is to mingle the children with local island inhabitants. A number of activities are organized with that purpose in mind, said Çavuşyan:

“Meeting the children from outside the camp enables the visiting kids to get more socialized. We try to eliminate class or social status difference through these activities,” he said.

The camp receives support and assistance from the Island Water Sports Club. “Each summer, the Club welcomes the camp’s children without any material expectation, and we are grateful to them,” he said.

In addition to the Armenian volunteers, the camp is also visited by foreigners. The children are taught different languages during their stay.

"The children also learn to play a music organ, paint and participate in sportive activities,” said Tamar Karasu, the camp’s secretary general. Basketball and football games are organized between the camp’s residents and the islands locals. Having been raised on the island, Karasu confessed he never visited the camp until he became its manager.

13-year-old Melis Öcal has been coming to the camp with her siblings for the last five years. She said she feared growing up and not being able to come to the camp. “Now I found a formula. I will come to the camp as an instructor and take care of the children. I will therefore not stay away from the camp,” she said.

12-year-old Manuel Haçikoğlu did not even realize how the two months had passed already. He does miss his parents but he said he could see them at the week-ends