In my previous article, we discussed the topic of the “Young Guru Academy: YGA Application”. This time, let’s talk about what happened after this application. After the application, I waited for 1.5 months for the results to be announced. In my class, 4 of us passed the pre-selection, including 3 of my friends and myself. A message arrived at 8 in the morning; it was something like, “You have qualified to attend the summit.” I can’t exactly remember what it said right now, but it was something like that. There is also the matter of confirmation, of course. You are required to provide feedback stating that you will attend the summit. In the feedback, information like where you are currently studying is requested because transportation to Istanbul will be provided by a bus departing from a location near that area. Aside from that, as far as I understand, the round-trip travel is covered by YGA. But we need to get to Eskişehir; we will cover that ourselves. Besides this, during the feedback process, a donation of 20 TL is collected within the scope of the “Read, Think, Share” (Oku, Düşün, Paylaş) project. But again, it’s for the kids.
Other than that, I attended ODP twice thanks to a friend before the results were announced. A friend in my class is a YGA member, and they meet with students once a week to carry out the “Read, Think, Share” project. Since I was curious about both what kind of environment it was and what my friend in YGA was doing, I flew over there when they invited me. By the way, the students are generally at the middle school level, meaning it covers the 6th, 7th, and 8th grades.
The students here really, truly love to talk. They not only love to talk, but they also speak with a lot of substance. The children here are genuinely being instilled with many leadership qualities like initiative, unity, and integrity. It was a really beautiful environment. All of my younger brothers and sisters (referring to the kids) were brilliant, and there were times they completely surprised me with the sentences they constructed and the answers they gave. By the way, my YGA friend also really puts a lot of effort into this. In a session that lasts about 1.5 to 2 hours, they progress by keeping their communication with the children at a wonderful level. In short, this job doesn’t seem to be something just anyone can pull off.
So, there it is. We will be going to Istanbul for the YGA Summit on November 29th. Hopefully, we will return happily.
