Social Awareness Projects are a participatory democracy program, and are designed to ensure that individuals realize, understand and fulfill their responsibilities to society. With Social Awareness Projects, individuals become part of the participatory democracy program, learn and practice participatory democracy. While doing this, they collaborate with different institutions and organizations. Thus, inter-institutional collaborations are also developed through awareness projects that produce solutions in society. Individuals also take their own initiatives while implementing Social Awareness Projects and carry out projects on a teamwork basis.
Our aims with Social Awareness Projects are:
.Strengthening the ties between the university and the society, raising students who are sensitive to social issues and have a sense of social responsibility,
.Preparing projects to determine the current problems of the society and produce solutions,
.Encouraging volunteering in various projects within the framework of social responsibility,
.Providing basic knowledge and skills for the implementation of community service activities in faculties and higher education institutions.
While our country continues to develop, it also has to work on many needs and problems, from education to health, from the environment to disadvantaged groups. Social Awareness Projects aim to develop solutions for all these problems and needs and to implement these solutions. Young people who participate in Social Awareness Projects develop their awareness of these problems and make a difference in society.
Encouraging volunteer participation in social awareness projects is a requirement of Gaziantep University's social responsibility approach.
As Gaziantep University, we aim to raise young people with social awareness projects:
· Who can empathize with individuals through teamwork,
· Who have knowledge and skills in project cycle management,
· Who have strong communication and organization skills,
· Who not only take part in existing projects but also develop their own project ideas and offer solution suggestions,
· Who understand the power of civil society,
· Who can understand every aspect of the environment they live in,
· Who see differences in society as diversity.
Gaziantep University Social Awareness Projects Center has been established to produce projects to create awareness among university students about social problems, increase civil society awareness and strengthen inter-institutional collaborations.
According to the decision taken in the meeting of our Gaziantep University Senate dated 29.09.2009 and numbered 18, all first-year students registered at Gaziantep University will take part in a Social Awareness Project (CAP). Social Awareness Projects are a compulsory course for first-year students.
The Social Awareness Projects course aims to provide students with basic knowledge and skills to determine current problems of society and prepare projects to produce solutions, to take part in scientific activities and to volunteer in various projects within the framework of social responsibility, and to implement social projects.
The implementation of the projects is in the form of project preparation in the first semester and field application in the second semester. The content of the course is social responsibility projects that students will prepare and implement for their own environments. The course is based entirely on student participation, cooperation with civil society organizations, group work and experiences.
Within the scope of the “project preparation” process in the first term,
· Project cycle management and
· Informing on responsibility, volunteering and teamwork,
· Conducting research on the project topic and preparing the necessary documents,
· Conducting meetings with relevant public institutions and organizations for the realization of the project and obtaining the necessary permissions,
· Determining the project steps, duration and activities,
· Assignments such as project spokesperson and project photographer are made by the project advisor faculty member.
In the second term, field applications of the projects begin. The official date of the project application form is notified to all departments and faculties by the Social Awareness Projects Center with an official letter. You can submit your project ideas that you want to implement to the Social Awareness Projects Center by filling out the "project application form" on our website.
All faculty members, lecturers and experts from outside the university with guest lecturer status are invited to propose social awareness projects.