Turkey-Armenia Travel Grant continues to increase direct contacts and to promote cooperation between the peoples of the two neighbouring countries.

During November 2016 – February 2017 application period, Turkey-Armenia Travel Grant received a total of 162 applications from both countries. We are delighted to announce that in this round, the Hrant Dink Foundation will be offering support in the form of a travel grant to a total of 74 individuals – 30 from Armenia, 44 from Turkey - for their visits to the neighbouring country with specific purpose and programme.

You can follow experiences and impressions of Turkey-Armenia Travel Grant beneficiaries through the Turkey-Armenia Beyond Borders website.

Turkey-Armenia Travel Grant 10^th Round Grantees

Ziya Azazi fromIstanbul, will be supported with Turkey-Armenia Travel Grant to visit Yerevan, for taking part in “ARé” performing arts festival, doing a performance and series of workshops, sharing about own artistic activities and learning from the people of Armenia.

Rafik Movsisyan from Yerevan, film critic at Golden Apricot International Film Festival, will be supported with Turkey-Armenia Travel Grant to visit Ankara, for taking part in Ankara International Film Festival as the presenter of the Armenian short films programme, moderator of discussions and as a jury member of short films competition.

Diana Kardumyan from Ashtarak, Alen Manukyan and Naira Muradyan from Yerevan will be supported with Turkey-Armenia Travel Grant to visit Ankara, for taking part in Ankara International Film Festival to present their short movies “Dialogues”, “Resurrection” and  "Marc and Marc" respectively.

Artavazd Vardanyan from Yerevan, member of Panarmenian Media Holding, will be supported with Turkey-Armenia Travel Grant to visit Ankara, for covering Ankara International Film Festival which features Armenian short films programme.  

Esra Özban from Ankara, member of Pink Life LGBTT Solidarity Association, and Tahir Onur Çimen from Ankara, member of Flying Broom Women's Communication and Research Association, will be supported with Turkey-Armenia Travel Grant to visit Yerevan, for attending the 13^th  Golden Apricot Yerevan International Film Festival, meeting programmers, filmmakers, and artists tocreate dialogue between film festivals and cinema industry in Armenia, and for meeting LGBTQI activists and other grass-roots initiatives.

Ezgi Yıldız from Istanbul, member of Nor Radyo, will be supported with Turkey-Armenia Travel Grant to visit Yerevan, for creating a network between Nor Radyo and minorities of Armenia, and for discussion cooperation opportunities with the Independent Journalists’ Network NGO.

Kerim   Kürkçü from Istanbul, director of Uniq Gallery, will be supported with Turkey-Armenia Travel Grant to visit Gyumri, for meeting Armenia-based curators, gallery directors and artists to explore further cooperation possibilities to realize his open studio project including workshops and exhibition with the participation of 5 artists from Turkey and 5 from Armenia.

Alla Yeghoyan from Yeghvard, Nadya  Hovhannisyan from Gyumri, and Sofya Hakobyan from Yerevan, members ofEUPHRATES research center, will be supported with Turkey-Armenia Travel Grant to visit Istanbul, for doing research in a number of Armenian-populated districts of Turkey, where Christian and Islamized Armenians of Sassoun live.

Sarhat Petrosyan from Yerevan, director of Urbanlab Socio-Cultural Foundation, will be supported with Turkey-Armenia Travel Grant to visit Istanbul, for participating in “Turkish-Armenian Dialogue and Memory Workshop” organized by Karakutu in cooperation with Imagine Center for Conflict Transformation.

Pınar Sayan from Istanbul, Turkey Director of Imagine Center for Conflict Transformation, will be supported with Turkey-Armenia Travel Grant to visit Yerevan, for attending “Turkish-Armenian Dialogue and Memory Workshop” organized by Karakutu and for participating in the conference “Armenia-Turkey: paving ways for dialogue and reconciliation” organized by Caucasus Research Resource Center (CRRC) within the framework of the programme “Support to the Armenia-Turkey Normalisation Process”.

Arzu Akar, Azize Tulan, Enver Birim, Gülan Yaklav, Mehdi Toka, Mehmet Savaş Yanık, Roney Erdinç Seyhan Alu, Sipan Eren and Ümran Baturay from Diyarbakır, members of Forum Theatre Diyarbakır, will be supported with Turkey-Armenia Travel Grant to visit Yerevan, for participating in workshops, working with the artists, developing the scenario and making a forum theatre performance.

Aram Ananyan, director of Armenpress, Aren Petunc, Elen Kokchyan, Hrach Mirzoyan, Knarik Mirzoyan, Mariam Ghukasyan, Mariam Melkonyan, Naira Poghosyan, Satenik Petrosyan and Tatevik Hakobyan from Yerevan State University, from Yerevan, will be supported with Turkey-Armenia Travel Grant to visit Istanbul, for meeting scholars in Turkey, visiting libraries and Boğaziçi University, and establishing contacts for future research programmes.

Hasmik Movsisian from Yerevan, executive director of Music of Armenia,will be supported with Turkey-Armenia Travel Grant to visit Istanbul, for establishing partnerships with potential local partners for Music of Armenia's upcoming festival - Tsovits Tsov and for encouraging collaboration between musicians of the two countries.

Hasmik Harutyunyan from Yerevan, will be supported with Turkey-Armenia Travel Grant to visit Istanbul, for sharing knowledge and collaborating with musicians from Turkey.

Birsen Atakan from Istanbul, vice president of Non-violent Education and Research Association, Aslı Polatdemir from Denizli and Eleni Diker from Istanbul, co-founders of BoMoVu (Network of Sport and Body Movement for Vulnerable Groups),will be supported with Turkey-Armenia Travel Grant to visit Yerevan, for visiting Women's Resource Center of Armenia to discuss their joint conference planned in Istanbul on women's physical integrity in conflict zones and possibilities of implementing Reconciliation Games project (Barışa Oyna) on the Armenian side of the border.

Selin Süar Oral from Istanbul, lecturer at Istanbul Aydın University,will be supported with Turkey-Armenia Travel Grant to visit Yerevan, for preparing a short film about the life of the grandchildren of the Armenian people deported from Turkey.

Ayla Jean Yackley from Istanbul, will be supported with Turkey-Armenia Travel Grant to visit Yerevan, for conducting a reporting trip in Armenia, with a focus on various stories including efforts of reviving talks towards normalisation of relations between Armenia and Turkey; the integration of ethnic Armenians who fled Syria during the war; the status of Yazidis in Armenia; and the 2017 Armenian Genocide commemorations.

Aylin Kızıl, member ofNar Photos, and Serdar Bayram from Diyarbakır, will be supported with Turkey-Armenia Travel Grant to visit Yerevan, for taking photographs of daily lives and religious rituals of Yazidi people who live in Elegez Region in Armenia.

Serpil Polat and Fatma Çelik from Diyarbakır, members of Nar Photos, will be supported with Turkey-Armenia Travel Grant to visit Yerevan, for discussing possibilities of collaboration with 4Plus Photographers and doing a photography project on Armenians forcibly displaced from Anatolia after 1915.

Lusine  Petrosyan from Yerevan, diplomatic correspondent of Hraparak daily, will be supported with Turkey-Armenia Travel Grant to visit Istanbul, for covering the election and enthronement of the Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople.

Eduard Abrahamyan from Yerevan, PHD researcher at University of Leicester, will be supported with Turkey-Armenia Travel Grant to visit Istanbul, for attending the workshop and training focused on Turkey’s regional politics, security issues, relations with the neighbours and NATO organized by the Wise Men Centre for Strategic Studies (BILGESAM).

Alina Poghosyan from Yerevan, researcher at Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography of National Academy of Sciences of Armenia, and Vahram Danielyan, from Nor Hachen, an assistant professor atYerevan State University and American University of Armenia will be supported with Turkey-Armenia Travel Grant to visit Istanbul, for presenting to the audience in Turkey their project “Negotiation of Differences in the Common Urban Space”, the online collection of the essays to be published within the framework of the programme “Support to the Armenia-Turkey Normalisation Process”.

Armenuhi Sardaryan, Gayane Movsisyan, Karine Mkhitaryan, Lia Ghazaryan, Lilit Ghukasyan, and Mariam Adamyan from Hrazdan, will be supported with Turkey-Armenia Travel Grant to visit Istanbul, for organizing a 4-day workshop for children with special needs in Turkey to help them obtain useful skills for their everyday life and for sharing experiences with their colleagues working with disadvantaged and disabled children.

Melike Elik, Mezra Öner, and Yıldız Tahtacı, from Diyarbakır, members of Diyarbakır Institute for Political and Social Research (DİSA), will be supported with Turkey-Armenia Travel Grant to visit Yerevan, to make research about their paper “The Effects of Armenian Migration on Vernacular Architecture on cities of Amed (Digranakert), Beirut and Yerevan” and to understand the architectural texture of on Yerevan.

Hayrettin Pişkin, Lamia İnci Akalp and Leyla Yavuz from Çanakkale, board members of Human Rights Association, will be supported with Turkey-Armenia Travel Grant to visit Vanadzor, for getting in touch with human rights organisations and exploring possibilities of planning joint projects.

Nevruz Ürün from Van, will be supported with Turkey-Armenia Travel Grant to visit Yerevan, for visiting Radio Yerevan and for making further research on Dengbêj – storytelling tradition of by epic singers.

Önder Çelik from Van, graduate student of Johns Hopkins University, will be supported with Turkey-Armenia Travel Grant  to visit Yerevan, for presenting a paper on Kurdish treasure hunters in Van, at the conference "Armenia-Turkey: paving ways for dialogue and reconciliation” and for making interviews with Armenian archaeologists and anthropologists at the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography..

Masis Kıçik from Istanbul will be supported with Turkey-Armenia Travel Grant to visit Yerevan, for participating in a 2-year teaching programme as the Fellow of Teach for Armenia which organizes teacher placements to  the most underserved schools in different regions of Armenia.

Simon   Hartmann and Hande Topaloğlu from Istanbul, members of Association for the Study of Sociology of Memory and Culture (BEKS), will be supported with Turkey-Armenia Travel Grant to visit Yerevan, for sharing in a workshop the findings of their research on the post-memory of the Genocide, 4^th generation of survivors, and their role in the process of Turkey’s coming to terms with its past.  

Abdulmutallip Karabal, student at Nişantaşı University Vocational School,and Süleyman Kurt, music instructor at Diyarbakır Metropolitan Municipality Social Services Department,from Diyarbakır, will be supported with Turkey-Armenia Travel Grant to visit Yerevan and Gyumri, for conducting interviews with master qanun players at conservatories and for visiting Yazidi villages to record local songs.

Yasemin İnceoğlu from Istanbul, a professor of communication, will be supported with Turkey-Armenia Travel Grant to visit Yerevan, for making a comparative study on hate speech coverage in the Armenian and Turkish media and for interviewing Armenian journalists.

Erkan Kalenderli, Emine Ülkerim, Halil Başoğlu, and Hasan Çakmak, from Istanbul, members of Group Sentez, will be supported with Turkey-Armenia Travel Grant to visit Yerevan, for filming Armenian master stone masons and wood carvers at their workshops in an effort to trace Anatolian legacy of these artisanship..

Zeynal Abidin Kızılyaprak from Istanbul will be supported with Turkey-Armenia Travel Grant to visit Vanadzor, for meeting journalists and visiting human rightorganisations.

Mahir Kartal from Istanbul will be supported with Turkey-Armenia Travel Grant to visit Yerevan, for meeting Armenian duduk players.

Turkey-Armenia Travel Grant is waiting for your applications!

Between July 2016 to July 2017, thanks to the European Union funding Turkey-Armenia Travel Grant will continue to support at least 180 individuals and non-profit civic initiatives from Armenia and Turkey to travel to the neighbouring country for their activities and studies in various thematic fields, by covering their international and domestic travel costs.

Next Deadline for Applications: 25 April 2017

Please read the Turkey-Armenia Travel Grant Regulations before submitting your application.

Click here to fill in the application form for the Turkey-Armenia Travel Grant.

For you questions, you can contact the project coordinators Anna Yeghoyan, Armenuhi Nikoghosyan and Nazlı Türker through [email protected]

Turkey-Armenia Travel Grant Selection Committee Members

Anahit Minassian

Dikran Altun

Feray Salman

Gayane Mkrtchyan

Gülesin Nemutlu

Nelli Minasyan

In 2016-2017, Hrant Dink Foundation administers the Turkey-Armenia Travel Grant with the financial assistance of the European Union within the framework of the programme Support to the Armenia-Turkey Normalisation Process – Stage II in collaboration with the Eurasia Partnership Foundation (EPF) and Gyumri “Youth Initiative Centre” NGO (YIC) in Armenia.