Turkish American Women Association

Mother’s Day Celebration at Nursing Homes

Admin — Fri, 18 May 2012 22:29:22 +0000

On Sunday May 13^th 2012, Turkish American Women Association volunteers visited Garland Nursing and Rehabilitation Center and Arden Courts of Richardson. Senior citizens were given variety of roses and cookies from Turkish ladies and children to celebrate their mother’s day. The senior citizens were very pleased from our visit and wanted us to visit them again. We are very thankful to the devoted staff for their kind assistance for the Mother’s day visit.

Garland Nursing and RehabilitationCenteris located in Garlandwith almost 100 seniors in the facility. Arden Courts of Richardson, located in Richardson, provides a pleasing home for individuals with memory loss, such as Alzheimer’s disease. (TAWA, 13 May 2012)

Visit to Lake Highlands United Methodist Church

Admin — Tue, 08 May 2012 17:03:03 +0000

A group of TAWA volunteers visited Lake Highlands United Methodist Church on April 10th. The meeting started with a tour of the church and a warm welcome speech by church members. TAWA Outreach Director Kamile Yagci gave a presentation about TAWA and its activities. We thank members of Lake Highland Methodist Church for inviting us and for their hospitality.

TAWA visited an Indian Family

Admin — Mon, 07 May 2012 16:39:10 +0000

TAWA ladies were invited to an Indian Family’s house on May 6th Sunday for an informal Indian Cooking Class. The hosts were Shahbanu and Ayun Melek. In this friendly environment the basic Indian Cuisine dishes were prepared. The appetizers were Indian Tea (Chai, with milk) and Samosas (an Indian Pastry). Then experienced cook Ayun Melek demostrated how to make Chicken Curry, Cauliflower with Peas and Indian Rice Pilaf. We all enjoyed learning about the country India and the unique spices of Indian Cuisine. The lunch was concluded with home made Mango ice cream. With recipes in our hands several of us rushed to the stores to get the ingredients to make these wonderful dishes at home. Here are some pictures from the Indian Cooking Class…

4th Book Club Meeting: Social Intelligence

Admin — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 18:39:13 +0000

TAWA had its fourth Book Club Meeting on March 24. This meeting’s book was “Social Intelligence” by Daniel Goleman. Goleman explains that this book was written as a companion volume to his world-famous book Emotional intelligence. In emotional intelligence he talks about a set of certain capacities within us and our ability to manage our own emotions and inner potential for positive relationship while in his Social Intelligence he carries these capacities to a two-person psychology.

In this book, he makes use of an emerging field of social neuroscience. Recent discoveries of social neuroscience show that we are wired to connect and our interactions with people not only affect us emotionally but also physically. He emphasizes the importance of secure base and we come across this at various parts of the book. One example of secure base given is between parents and their children. When parents act with empathy and are responsive to a child’s needs they build a basic sense of security. Well-attuned parents offer a child a secure base. This parent-child relationship teaches the child to manage her social life and also shape intellectual development. He states that it takes a socially intelligent family to raise a happy child and that genes alone are not sufficient to raise one.

The book mentions that socially integrated people—those who are married, have close family and friends, etc—recover more quickly from disease and live longer.

Another part where importance of secure base is mentioned is the business world. Secure bases are sources of protection, energy and comfort—feeling secure lets a person focus better on the work at hand, achieve goals, and see obstacles as challenges not threats. Studies have shown that at the work place where the boss managed to build a secure base the productivity and the length of stay at work was higher.

Goleman states that social intelligence is essential for our health, happiness, well-being and sense of humanity and advocates the concept of social communities in schools, prisons, neighborhoods, families and workplaces as a means of combating social disconnect. He argues that “human connectedness” will overcome prejudice and discrimination as “Them” becomes “Us” through empathy and compassion and this in turn will overcome hatred and violence and promote healing and forgiveness.

Coffee Night, March 2012

Admin — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 18:18:04 +0000

TAWA guests had another unforgettable coffee night with live performance of Turkish folk dance. The coffee night started with folk dance performance from Artvin. Artvin is a city in Black Sea region. The folk dance resembled the active, fast, and big waves of Black Sea. There were two other performances by the dancers, one called “shemmame” and the other is “kolbasti”. After each performance, our Coffee Night guests had a chance to join the group, practice for a while with an instructor and dance with them. Most of our guests said “it feels like a total work out.” After total work out, our guests enjoy delicious food prepared by TAWA volunteers. It was a great opportunity for many of us to meet new people and create new friendship.

TAWA Luncheon, March 2012

Admin — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 19:01:36 +0000

Dr. Marjorie Hass, the President of Austin College was our speaker for the March 3^rd luncheon. She gave information about some of the qualities that an academic leader should have. She mentioned some of these qualities are easy for women because they naturally gain it through motherhood and social interactions within the community. For example creating win win solutions. When there is a conflict, women are successful in resolving the issue in such a manner that every side is happy about the outcome. Also, women are good in creating a community and gathering people around a common purpose. Women are great in organizing events and arranging every detail about an event. There are some issues that women need to work on to become better academic leaders such as time management. It is important to use our time efficiently and decide what is crucial to attend and be ready to say no from time to time. There will be situations where women will be asked to attend committees for minorities and it is important to prioritize your time. Also women need to become more assertive. Sometimes for the sake of being polite and nice, we do not like to talk about our own achievements and express our contributions, or we wait for other people to notice our hard work. We need to negotiate better and be assertive in seeking the opportunities that come up. Her speech was very insightful and she gave some notable examples from her own life and how she reached her present position. She mentioned about some wrong perceptions about women compared to their men colleagues. She introduced us to Austin College and talked about the differences of liberal art colleges compared to universities. She answered our questions and it was a lovely and very interactive luncheon.

Topical Seminar: Democratization of Turkey

Admin — Sun, 26 Feb 2012 17:49:15 +0000

TAWA co-organized and sponsored the seminar program entitled “Turkey’s Journey of Democratization” which was held at Southern Methodist University on February 22, 2012. The guest speaker of the event was Dr. Alp Aslandogan, President of Institute of Interfaith Dialog and co-editor of “Muslim Citizens of the Globalized World”.

In his speech, Dr. Aslandogan presented stunning facts about ongoing democratization process of Turkey. Although Turkey is commonly seen a shining star of secular democracy in the Middle East which mostly have authoritarian governments, its journey to true democracy was not so easy and in fact quite painful. Parliamentary democracy was embraced as a regime with the establishment of Rebuplic of Turkey in 1923 but it became a reality after 27 years with the transition to the multiple party system in 1950. However, it was only the beginning of almost-periodical military interruptions when it saw its most popular ever prime minister hanged by the military junta in 1960 and three other elected governments toppled in 1971, 1980 and 1997 respectively. And just recently, the current ruling party which gained a landslide victory in 2007 elections, showed substantial success in economy and made the greatest advances toward meeting the Copenhagen criteria for EU membership, barely dodged closure by a state prosecutor.

The EU harmonization law package that was passed by Turkish Grand National Assembly is an important proof of Turkey’s determination toboost its democracy up to the level of the western countries. In September 2010, Turkish people approved amendments to the constitution which lifted protection for former military junta members. For the first time in the country’s history, the military officers and other individuals who were behind three accomplished and several attempted coups are being brought to accountability amidst a state prosecutor’s investigation. Termed the “case of the century,” this investigation nevertheless led some domestic and foreign allies of the alleged perpetrators to cry foul and misleadwestern readers with biased interpretations of developments in favor of the authoritarian establishment. The slowing down of the negotiations with EU and worries about the authoritarian tendencies in the leadership of all political parties remain obstacles to be overcome in the path toward consolidating democracy. Despite all difficulties, the genie is out of bottle for Turkey: People of Turkey have experienced and saw the beauty of democracy and there seems to be no turning back from this process.

Coffee Night, February 2012

Admin — Sun, 26 Feb 2012 03:21:09 +0000

On February 24, 2012, Lillian Hunt helped us understand how music therapy changes the lives of people. The purpose of music therapy is to address physical, emotional, cognitive, and social needs of individuals. Lillian works with autistic children, Alzheimer patients, and some other people who respond to music therapy for communication. When it is difficult for some individuals to express themselves in words, music therapy becomes their way of communication. Music therapy also gives emotional support to clients. Lillian Hunt had great information which clearly explained music therapy’s role in the improvement of her clients’ skills. She gave examples of people whose lives changed with the therapy. She passed out some instruments that she uses in her practice and our guest had fun singing and playing with the instrument. The evening started with brief introduction of music therapy and ended with lots of fun and music.

Turkish Cuisine Class #2 on February 11th

Admin — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 18:59:47 +0000

TAWA organized the 2nd session of Turkish Cuisine Classes on February 11th, Saturday. We had Collard Greens Soup from the Black Sea Region of Turkey, Chicken Kapama, Green Beans and traditional dessert Gullac. Besides demonstration of delicious Turkish dishes, we watched videos on Turkey and Turkish folk dance. We will have the next session on February 25th. Please join us for the feast!

Click here to view more photos. Click here to visit our meetup group.

Coffee Night, January 2012

Admin — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 17:05:48 +0000

TAWA held the first Coffee Night of 2012 on January the 25th at Turquoise Center. The night started with a brief presentation about “manti”, one of the beating hearths of Turkish Cuisine. The talk was mainly focused on the regions of Turkey famous with manti, a glance back to history, so where manti is migrated to Turkey from and the process to make “Manti”. There was a live demonstration of manti preparing right after the talk. And guests were welcome to learn and contribute to the process. Many guests showed interest and gathered around the stool to either observe or actually try folding manti hands on. After the demo, all guests are welcomed to volunteer for the next activity which is a small competition of manti folding through four groups. The competition was full of excitement and fun. The winners were able to fold over 160 manti in a short period of time. First two groups are awarded with small porcelain boxes designed with one of the most significant Ottoman arts, “Cini”. As a ritual of Coffee Nights, guests enjoyed delicious Turkish food during the program.