Umut Foundation in Numbers
In 17 Years ...

Umut Foundation, founded with the belief that the change should start with the young people in our country, where violence is increasing and the culture of reconciliation has not been adopted, carried out work towards a peace and reconciliation culture at its early periods and from 2000 onwards, it has been trying to create solutions for the personal armament problem our society is facing with the support from academicians, MP’s and conscious people.

Umut Vakfý is one of the 5 non-governmental organizations in Turkey with consulting member status to UN Economic and Social Council.

In 17 years the Umut Foundation achieved the following:

• The members of the Foundation traveled 151.000 km. both domestically and abroad in order to achieve its aims… 
• The Foundation realized 62 scientific meetings mainly focusing on topics such as personal disarmament, peace, regional peace, reconciliation 
• The Foundation organized 16 contests with prize awards in various branches of art including caricature, photography, film scenario, documentary, painting and sculpture. The 14th contest is currently being held in 2008.
• It published 12 books and 5 booklets consisting of scientific meetings and studies on topics including criminology, criminal law, and human rights education for primary school.
  The teacher’s and student’s books”To be a citizen…” approved by Head Council of Education and Morality are used as a textbook for education at schools supervised by Ministry of National Education.
• 71 trainings were given on various topics such as being a conscious citizen, human rights training, reconciliation training
• 2.300 people were trainedincluding Social Services Experts, teachers, lawyers, psychologists, social scientists and students.
  Almost 2000 trainers working at schools in various regions in Turkey were given “To be a citizen...” trainers training .
• A total of 126 activities were realized in 20 provinces in Turkey and in 9 countries abroad.
• Around 22.000 books were donated to various provincial libraries and public institutions.
• 24.400 saplings were planted in Umut Forests in 6 different regions including Silivri, Kilyos, Ankara, Kartal.
• The Foundation received 32 platelets, awards and honor certificates from government agencies, local administrations and other NGO’s.
• The Foundation organized 5 campaigns entitled “Freeing children from toy guns”, “Stop violence in football”, “No to armed celebrations”, “personal disarmament”
• Silent Shoes, with the attendance of those who say no to personal armament and the conscious citizens marched on Taksim Square 9 times. In 2010 silent shoes will march for the 10th time...
• 260.300 people from all provinces took part in our activities.
• Its website with sections including weekly comment, numbers, wars, concepts, Turkey from the 3^rd page was visited by 459.246 people.
• In its website 11.000 files are available for reference including the scientific studies Umut Foundation carried out in its areas of study, meeting notes, various articles and research conducted by numerous experts and academicians,  statistical work related to topics such as violence, population, development.

• In our website www.umut.org.tr there are 4.140  Page 3 news related to guns.

• On our website 
  423  weekly comments and war news, Turkey in numbers, Please read, concepts and forum articles have been published; these articles are renewed each week.

• 47.774 people took part in our “Should toy guns be banned?” survey and 10.242 people took part in our “Should it be forbidden to bring a gun to open-air ceremonies such as weddings, engagement, henna night, circumcision ceremonies?” by clicking on our website.

• Umut Foundation is a NGO, which creates public opinion regarding the topics its works on, the Works of which are closely followed by the media, opinion leaders, law-making and decision-taking authorities and large segments of the society. Its works to-date have been on visual and written media for around 2.700 times. 

• The experts at Foundation took part in the meeting of Draft Law for Firearms Sub-commission which was formed due to the reaction of MP’s to the violent environment in the society related to the Law for the Firearms and Knives and Other Tools, no: 6136 and to discuss various draft bill proposals submitted to the Presidency of Turkish Grand National Assembly (TGNA) and they contributed to the legal arrangements regarding law on firearms with Percussion and Gas Cartridges with their knowledge and solution proposals.

• The knowledge pool of the Umut Foundation, operating for 17 years with the basic philosophy to create peace and tranquility among citizens, to ingrain reconciliation culture and to develop conscience of citizenship is an important source of reference for developing such draft bills, creating new suggestions with the aim of finding solutions for problems. Umut Foundation proudly offered all the academic knowledge and studies it accumulated in  17 years to be used during the said process.  

• In the “National Report On The Implementation Of The United Nations Programme Of Action To Prevent, Combat And Eradicate The Illicit Trade In Small Arms And Light Weapons In All Its Aspects” of Republic of Turkey Ministry of Foreign Affairs the following passage was included “In Turkey, there are NGOs which are engaged in activities related to SALW (Small and Light Weapons). The most active NGO registered in Turkey is "Umut Foundation” . Thus the national and international official authorities acknowledge Umut Foundation as the only NGO dealing with the said social problem in Turkey.

Updated on: 1 June 2010