ISTANBUL - HDP Istanbul Young Women’s Coordination member Ronahi Tunç, who said that they aimed to increase awareness and organizing by reaching young people within the scope of the ‘’Let’s break addiction, build a new life’’ campaign, called on the youth to protect the campaign.

 

Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) Youth Council announced that it had launched a campaign with the slogan ‘Let’s break addiction, build a new life’’ at a press conference in Diyarbakır on September 10. With this campaign, the Youth Council aims to increase the awareness of the society against drug addiction and prostitution, which has recently increased among young people. As part of the campaign, HDP Young Women’s Coordination announced a competition called ‘’We meet in art against addiction’’ on September 29 and called on young women to transform their dreams into painting, writing and dance figures. Applications for the competition are made online, and the deadline is October 25.

 

HDP Istanbul Young Women’s Coordination member Ronahi Tunç spoke to our agency about their campaigns and the purpose of the competition they organized.

 

Purpose of the campaign

 

Speaking about the purpose of the ‘’Let’s break addiction, let’s build a new life’’ campaign, Ronahi said that drugs, prostitution and virtual addiction have increased in Kurdish provinces and cities with a high Kurdish population, and continued: ‘’Drugs are sold in every neighborhood of the Kurdistan region, young women are dragged into prostitution, even if they do not use drugs, because of the economic crisis, we see him/her selling drugs. When we look at the metropolises of Turkey, there are also high levels of drug addiction, virtual media and cafe culture in neighborhoods with a high Kurdish population. At this point, we started the campaign ‘’Let’s break addiction and build a new life.’’

 

Ronahi stated that they will carry out awareness raising activities for the youth within the scope of the campaign and added: ‘’We aim to break the addiction by contacting the youth one-to-one, if necessary, by going from neighborhood to neighborhood, from house to house, and contacting them, revealing and organizing this awareness in young people.’’

 

‘Government is afraid of conscious youth’

 

Sharing the information that they do not impose a certain time limit on their campaigns, Ronahi drew attention to the role of youth, which is also the slogan of their campaign, in establishing a new life. Emphasizing that young people, especially young women, play a leading role in changing and transforming society, Ronahi continued: ‘’We aim for a free life, a free youth, not an addicted youth. The role of revealing this awareness among young people is through organization. But not only with organizing, young women should develop their self-defense. We proceed on this basis. We see that addiction is not only about drugs, but also that virtual addiction is increasing among young people in the Kurdistan region with the pandemic. With the pandemic, we see that young people are closed to their homes as a whole, and socialization and socialization are forgotten. This is the young profile the government wants. It doesn't want young people to be conscious. But youth is the leading role and mission of the society. The government is afraid of conscious youth, young women. Because it is afraid, it tries to make young women weak, tries to numb their brains, leaves no living space.’’

 

‘Young’s labor is exploited’

 

Stating that the government did not open economic areas for young people, Ronahi said that the labor of young people is exploited in existing business lines. Ronahi continued: ‘’Due to the economic crisis, a lot of ready-made garments have been opened in the Kurdistan region and the majority of the workers here are youth. There is also a situation where labor is exploited. Despite 13-14 hours and overtime, they are employed with a cheap salary. The government is very afraid of the potential of organized youth. An unconscious youth does not question anything, but it knows that an organized youth will question. It is afraid of this and is trying to suppress the youth at this point.’’

 

Young women take the field against masculine football

 

Ronahi noted that government are trying to prevent them from working in the neighborhood and reaching young people. She pointed out that the government does not want young people to raise awareness. Referring to the football tournaments they started in many cities in the summer months as the Youth Council, Ronahi stated that the tournaments were enthusiastic and greeted with interest. Ronahi said that the teams formed by young women especially attracted attention in tournaments, and stated: ‘’When we decided to launch a women’s football team, we were told a lot of sentences such as ‘how can women play football? We can hurt them, if we play, we will play hard’. We said that we will exist in every field as young women against the masculine system, masculine football. There was disbelief before the tournament, how would we play, how would we continue the process. But then we tried to play football with young women in a communal framework, applications started to increase. After a while, we could not receive the applications due to the huge demand. Deniz Poyraz’s mother came in the final match. When we started the tournament, we said that young women would start and young women would finish the tournament, and that is how it developed. Even young women who do not know the party welcomed it very well. We got very good feedback.’’

 

Ronahi also informed that the football tournament will continue on October 24 with the competitions in which the finalists of all cities will participate.

 

‘We meet in art against addiction’ competition

 

Giving information about the "We meet in art against addiction" competition that they will organize as the Young Women's Coordination, Ronahi reminded that the deadline for the competition is 25 October. Ronahi said: ‘’There will be folklore, music, dance, poetry, song and photography competitions within the program. All applications received in a province determined on November 7 will be evaluated together. Our aim in launching our campaign is to create a space where women can have their word.’’ She drew attention to the purpose of the competition with these words: ‘’Women do not only consist of a home atmosphere or a kitchen atmosphere, in this sense, we wanted to create a space where they can express themselves easily.’’

 

Call to young people

 

Ronahi stated that as HDP Istanbul Young Women’s Coordination, they will be in contact with the youth in the neighborhoods within the framework of the campaign, and that they will continue to work for the organization of the youth, and called on the youth to unite under the umbrella of the HDP Youth Council and Young Women’s Coordination.