Festival

One of our most essential instruments to show that our differences are a richness, and that they can live together, is our voices. Civil Voices Festival is a polyphonic choir where civil society organizations from diverse fields come together to share their experiences, knowledge, work, and dreams.

As one of the first events bringing together Türkiye’s civil society actors, the festival offers a space where civil society actors meet, discuss, and imagine what can be done for a better world. The festival is organized by STGM.

At Civil Voices Festival, civil society organizations working in different cities and across different thematic fields can showcase their work at stands, while also participating in workshops, panels, forums, and talks. This creates opportunities to get to know each other, discuss areas of work, and explore possibilities for collaboration.

The first Civil Voices Festival was held in 2009 at Küçükçiftlik Park in Istanbul. For two days, nearly a hundred organizations working in areas ranging from children’s rights to disability rights, youth rights to refugee rights, women’s rights to environmental rights gathered together.

After a two-year break, the second festival took place in July 2011 in Ankara, this time under the theme “No Civil Constitution Without Us”, focusing on the constitutional reform agenda. More than 100 civil society organizations from across Türkiye came together to prepare demands for an egalitarian, libertarian, pluralistic, and ecological constitution, calling on lawmakers to act.

The third festival, in May 2014, was held under the shadow of the Soma mine disaster. Organized as a forum, it was designed to discuss the “limits of freedom” through the lens of the right to life.

Although Civil Voices was intended to be a regular event from the beginning, due to various reasons it has been held irregularly. The most recent gathering before the pandemic took place in 2019 in Istanbul, where representatives of civil society organizations from across Türkiye came together to discuss the changes civil society had created over the years.

After a three-year break — mainly due to the pandemic — we held the fifth festival in October 2022 in Ankara under the slogan “If We Want Change, We Must Be Strong.” We welcomed over 600 civil society representatives from 58 cities across Türkiye.

The sixth festival was held on 17–18 November 2023 in İzmir Kültürpark under the motto “Solidarity Strengthens,” following the devastating February earthquakes. More than 200 organizations working in different rights fields came together to share how they tackled crises and their post-earthquake work in a series of sessions.

Most recently, in 2024, we gathered once again for the seventh festival, on 4–5 October at TED University in Ankara. With more than a thousand participants, the festival brought together all the voices and colors of civil society, as organizations showcased their work at stands and joined workshops on a wide variety of topics.