Civil Society Exchange

Overview

Civil Society Exchange is a collaboration project between Center for Civil Society Studies at Istanbul Bilgi University and MitOst e.V. to support civil society organizations and civil initiatives in Turkey and Europe through cross-border cooperation. The project encourages civil society organizations to form and foster partnerships across Turkey and Europe to learn from each other and to strengthen their organizational capacity.

The project was initiated by Center for Civil Society Studies at Istanbul Bilgi University in 2015 as a capacity building and organizational sustainability program for civil society organizations in Turkey. In 2017, Center for Civil Society Studies partnered with MitOst in Germany to implement a new international mobility model, capacity through mobility model, which enables participants to develop a strategy for tackling a mutual organizational issue, to implement a solution for a specific problem and to improve their internal capacity through cross-border collaboration.

Currently Civil Society Exchange operates two programs that place the capacity through mobility model at their core. Exchange Program has been on going since 2017 and connects civil society organizations across countries for capacity building. Partnership Program has started in 2020 and the project supports 4 partner organizations in co-designing and developing their own partnership program between Turkey and Europe.