The Southeastern Anatolian Education project, is comprised of three programs: the “Preschool Education Program”, the “Functional Adult Literacy and Women’s Support Program” and the “Mother Support Program”. In the program development stage, great emphasis has been placed on developing programs that will cater to the specific needs of the region, that will be culturally and socio-economically relevant.

During needs analysis and content development phase, several early childhood and adult education specialists, practitioners and NGO’s working in related fields, especially from the region, were consulted. Also, three different workshops were held, in May 24-25 in Istanbul and on June 11th in Diyarbakır, in order to present and discuss both the findings of the research conducted by AÇEV and the program objectives and content. As a result, the three programs below have been developed and will begin implementation in the 2002-2003 academic year.

Functional Adult Literacy and Woman Support Program
With this program, AÇEV aims to not only impart functional literacy skills to women living in the region, but to also support women so that they can participate more actively in social life and become aware of issues directly affecting their lives. As a result of the needs analysis conducted in the region and from the discussions in the workshops, the four month program will focus on areas such as citizenship, human rights, child care and training, as well as basic literacy and arithmetic. The ultimate goal of the program is to help women function more effectively in their daily lives and to become empowered through education. The program was developed by Prof.Dr. Aydın Yücesan Durgunoğlu, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Banu Öney, Hilal Kuşcul and AÇEV specialists Filiz Aslan, Meltem Cantürk and Mutlu Yasa.

Course implementations began in October 2002 and thus far 765 women from the provinces of Diyarbakır, Şanlıurfa and Siirt have successfully completed the Functional Adult Literacy and Women Support Program. Implementation within the region will continue until June 2004. During this time 250 trainers will be trained and 4,750 more adults will be reached in the provinces of Diyarbakır, Şanlıurfa, Mardin and Van.

Preschool Education Program
The Preschool Education Program’s ultimate goal is to help support the cognitive, physical and social development of the 5-6 year olds by improving his/her pre-numeracy, pre-literacy and language skills. The need for such a program was revealed during the field Research which was held in Diyarbakır, Van and Istanbul during two years. In this research the needs of the mothers who have children between 5-6 about preschool education, opinions and expectations of primary school teachers were determined and children’s level of verbal skills and their development in literacy were evaluated. As a result of all of the research and workshops conducted, it was determined that a 10-week support program would be developed and offered to children without access to any other preschool education.

The Preschool Education Program was developed by AÇEV specialists Filiz Uzuner and Deniz Şenocak under the consultancy of Prof. Dr. Sevda Bekman, Prof. Dr. Ayhan Aksu Koç and Prof. Dr.Eser Erguvanlı Taylan. The first implementation of the program began on June 23, 2003, in Diyarbakır. 400 children in the districts of Alipaşa (AÇEV Family and Child Education Center), Ben-u-Sen (Turgut Özal Primary School), Mardin Kapı (Mardin Kapı Primary School), Hayvan Pazarı (Şehitlik Primary School) and Bağlar (Fatih Primary School) have been reached through this summer’s 10 week long implementations.

Mother Support Program
This program aims to support mothers in and raise their awareness about their children’s developmental needs. The program’s content and approach has been developed in accordance with the experience gained from and the content of AÇEV’s Mother Child Education Program which is implemented in 60 provinces. But, as in the other two programs within this project, great emphasis is being placed on the meeting the specific needs of mothers in this region. As such, AÇEV’s research and needs analyses conducted in the region have revealed that mothers are most in need of support in areas such as parent child relationships, nutrition, preventative health and preparation for primary schooling. The 12 week program targets the mothers of 5-6 year olds who are attending the above mentioned Preschool Education Program. This program was developed by Prof. Dr. Sevda Bekman (Boğaziçi University) and AÇEV specialists Nur Sucuka and Ayşe Özdemir. This program is currently being implemented in all of the schools in which the Preschool Education Program is being implemented in--with three additional courses in Balıkçılarbaşı and Mardin Kapı-Hasırlı. The program started on June 16, 2003, with the attendance of over 400 mothers and ends in September 2003.

The AÇEV Family and Child Education Center
In 2003, AÇEV opened its own preschool and mother training center in Alipaşa, Diyarbakır. This center is comprised of 3 fully furbished preschool classrooms and 1 adult education classroom. This summer the center has been used as the site of 3 Preschool Education Program and 3 Mother Support Program course implementations. In the fall of 2003 the center is going to house a full-length preschool education program.