“Let’s Join in the World’s Largest Conversation #UN75, and Celebrate Turkey’s 75th Anniversary at the United Nations” titled webinar presented and congratulated the UN75th Anniversary and celebrated the 75th Anniversary of Turkey at the UN. The webinar on the #UN75 strongly encouraged all the attendees to join the “World’s Largest Conversation” towards including voices of the Turkish-American communities into the global matrix. 

Video:  https://youtu.be/Q6EkI1fTp3E
Related ATAA’s Announcement with the Speakers’ Bio: https://www.ataa.org/events/ataa-webinar-lets-celebrate-turkeys-75th-anniversary-at-the-un-sunday-oct-18-2pm-edt

Assembly of Turkish American Associations (ATAA) organized and presented a webinar on October 18, 2020, in collaboration with Ataturk Society of America and The Light Millennium Organization, which are associated with the United Nations Department of Global Communications as the U.S. based three secular Turkish-American organizations. The webinar is titled, “Let’s Join in the World’s Largest Conversation #UN75, and Celebrate Turkey’s 75th Anniversary at the United Nations“. It is aimed to congratulate the UN75th Anniversary and celebrating the 75th Anniversary of Turkey at the UN. The webinar on the #UN75 strongly encouraged all the attendees to join the “World’s Largest Conversation” towards including voices of the Turkish-American communities into the global matrix. 

The virtual gathering opened up with young-pianist Korkmaz Can Sağlam, Ahmet Ertegun Memorial Scholarship Recipient at The Juilliard School, and an excerpt from Beethoven, that he performed. 

President of ATAA Gökhan Özalp and moderator of the session delivered an Opening Remarks. In it, he underlined the importance of ATAA’s association with the United Nations Department of Global Communications and joining the ‘world’s largest conversation’. 

Further, Mr. Ozalp proposed that October 24 should be celebrated as Turkish Global Day. Before his Opening Remarks, Mr. Özalp thanked young pianist Korkmaz Can Sağlam; keynote speaker Ambassador Faruk Loğoğlu; Filiz Meral Güzel, UN-Women; Odabaş-Geldiay, Atatürk Society of America; and Sema Başol, Turkish Women’ Initiative; and the ATAA Committee on UN Relations, along with 19 participating Turkish-American Organizations in the Part-2, in which, each organization presented his/her organization, and congratulated both the UN75 and Turkey’s 75th Anniversary at the UN. 

In this above-given background, Mr. Özalp underlined the historical marking point of the celebration in correlation with ATAA’s lead via the following two points:

“Indeed, this gathering is historical.  
But it is not just only for the ATAA and the core-collaborating organizations along with ATAA, Ataturk Society of America, and The Light Millennium, which are associated Turkish-American NGOs to the United Nations Department of Global Communications (UN-DGC); and along with the 20 Turkish-American organizations.
It is historical because it marks the commemoration of the United Nations’ 75th Anniversary along with celebrating the 75th Anniversary of Turkey at the United Nations as one of the Founding Members of the UN on October 24, 1945. In this line, Turkish-American Organizations came together to celebrate both for the first time in the U.S. 
The second historical point is, ATAA has joined the UN-DGC as the largest Turkish-American Organizations as of July 2020 towards closing the gap between the Turkish-Americans at large and the global community through the United Nations.”

Prior moving into the Part-1, a video message of the 75^th Session President of the UN General Assembly H.E. Mr. Volkan Bozkır’s on the 75th Session priorities of the UN-General Assembly that set out the general concept and purpose of the webinar. (The video produced by the United Nations, September 2020).

In this framework, presentations of the webinar focused on the support of the President of the U.N. General Assembly’s 75th Session and his Excellency’s two of the top priorities “Multilateralism” and “Gender Equality”, and presented in two parts. In part one, Ambassador (ret.) Faruk Loğoğlu, Former Turkish Ambassador to the U.S., delivered a keynote, which focused on “Multilateralism and Turkey’s 75th Anniversary at the UN”,

in connection with Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) 5, Meral Güzel, Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs) Specialist of UN-Women, delivered a PowerPoint which focused on the importance of the “gender equality” and as the youngest UN agency UN-Women along with provided ongoing important programs of the UN-Women which is centered on “Women Empowerment” and “Gender Equality”; Filiz Odabaş-Geldiay, Founding Board Member, Atatürk Society of America (ASA), Executive Director, International Association for Human Values, delivered a speech titled, “Atatürk and Multilateralism” which also touched on Atatürk’s given the highest priority on “Women Rights” as a part of the national development program of Turkey during the 1923-1938 era. Sema Başol, President, Social Entrepreneur and Co-Founder of Turkish Women’s Initiative – TWI, presented the Turkish Women’s Initiative and its Spark Program, in which, the importance of education along with preparing young-girl students with an occupational and life that Ms. Başol presented success stories that combined in both.  Bircan Ünver, Chair, ATAA Committee on UN Relations & New York Region V.P. & Head Representative of The Light Millennium to the United Nations Department of Global Communications; framed the importance of celebrating the 75th Anniversary, Turkey’s 75th Anniversary at the UN along with, joining in the largest conversation of the world, in which, taken as the starting point from the UN-Charter’s Preamble as the four pillars of the UN, which follow: 1. Peace and Security; 2. Human Rights; 3. The Rule of Law; 4. Development

In this context, Ms. Ünver emphasized that these four pillars defined in 1945, which are “human-centered”, that if we aim to achieve them, we have to work towards it, and introduced the www.UN75.online Survey, and strongly encouraged all including participants-attendees family members, friends, and networks to join the survey.

President of ATAA and the moderator Mr. Özalp thanked the speakers of Part-1 and introduced a video message on the first UN Day (April 24, 2019), which titled, “The International Day of Multilateralism and Diplomacy for Peace” by the Secretary-General of the United Nations, H.E. Antonio Guterres (2019, the video produced by the United Nations), which laid-out the tone for the Part-II as the civil society organizations an integral part of the multilateralism towards achieving peace and development, which followed by “Brief Presentations by 19 Representatives of Turkish-American Organizations”.

This Part-II started off with Mehmet Akçay, President, Florida Turkish American Association; Engin Ateş, President, Turkish American Society of Northeastern Ohio; Fatma Aytaç, Chairwoman, Red Pepper Association, NGO Rep., UN-ECOSOC (New York); Aydın Durgunoğlu, President, Turkish American Association of Minnesota; Tufan Erdinç, President, Turkish American Cultural Association of Washington; Nilüfer Esen-Bilgin, Executive Board Member, Turkish American Cultural Association of Michigan;  Zinnur Fenmen,  President, Turkish American Ladies League; Vildan Görener,  President, Turkish American Cultural Alliance; Tuba Firincioglu-Apaydın, Past President, Turkish American Cultural Society of Colorado; Arzuhan Kavak, President, Turkish American Association of Arizona; Sıtkı Kazancı, President, American Turkish Association of Washington DC; Hülya Koç, Founder and President, Empowering The Turkish-American Community;  Binnaz Leblebicioğlu, President, Turkish American Association of Central Ohio; Sevgin Oktay, Founder & Past President, Turkish Anti-Defamation Alliance; Levent Onat, Vice President, Turkish American Association of Alabama; Özgür Özkurt, President, American Turkish Association of North Carolina; Vega Sankur, President, AKM Los Angeles; Mr. Erdal Sipahi, President, Turkish American Association of Northern Texas, and Nilay Senel-Nylund, President, Association of Turkish Americans of Southern California.

The part-2 was delivered in full and completed by Ms. Şenel-Nylund’s presentation. 

Closing Remarks of the webinar was delivered by President-elect Mazlum Koşma, who underlined the importance of celebrating of the #UN75 along with Turkey’s Anniversary at the UN and joining of the UN75.online survey. Mr. Koşma indicated that he will be supporting similar programs in connection with the UN. Further, Mr. Koşma thanked all the collaborating organizations, speakers of both parts, and pianist for each and everyone’s contributions in the program and all together, successfully successfully delivering the webinar along with ATAA’s Communication Director Hakan Dakin.

Student-pianist Kormaz Can Sağlam’s other video clip by Schuman was played for the closing music of the program. 

Through this webinar, 23 secular Turkish-American organizations came together for the first time, congratulated the UN75, 75th Anniversary of Turkey at the UN, and joined in the “largest conversation of the world.” 

The motto of the webinar echoed by many of the speakers as follows:

“We joined the largest conversation of the World. Why don’t you join?”

Total registration via Zoom of the webinar is 283; and the actual participants of the webinar were about 600 including via Youtube-Live.

The ATAA and the three core-organizers of the webinar thank very much to all the speakers and participating Turkish-American Associations, along with all the attendees of this special session.

Full-Video of the ATAA’s Webinar:  https://youtu.be/Q6EkI1fTp3E

Related Videos: 1. http://webtv.un.org/search/volkan-bozkir-president-of-the-75th-general-assembly/6189985193001/?term=VOLKAN%20BOZKIR%20The%20top%20diplomat%20shepherding%20the%20General%20Assembly%20Volkan%20Bozkir,%2014%20september%202020&sort=date&page=4

2.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hHYvySYD54

#UN75 Survey: www.un75.online

Program with the Speakers Bio:

https://www.ataa.org/events/ataa-webinar-lets-celebrate-turkeys-75th-anniversary-at-the-un-sunday-oct-18-2pm-edt

www.ataa.org | www.ataturksociety.org | www.lightmillennium.org