Kimse Yok Mu, STV, Kuzguncuk Armenian Church

On our last full day in Istanbul we had a chance to visit an NGO, Kimse Yok Mu, formed around 1999 following a major earthquake. In this earthquake, a woman buried in rubble kept screaming “Is anybody there?” thus the name; Kimse Yok Mu. They are a disaster response organization with 14 thousand volunteers and 80 paid staff. Their aim is to be there first. Their focus is to fight poverty, provide medical supplies, assist in disasters, micro financing, and woman focused issues. To learn more go to their web site http://www.kimseyokmu.org.tu/

We then traveled to a private TV station, STV, where we were given a tour of the facility and got to meet their famous cooking channel chef from the program, Yesil Elma; Green Apple! In 1993 they became a private series of channels for families. They call it responsible broadcasting and receive their news from CIHN Network, which we also visited. They reach 140 countries, targeting Turkish families mostly in the Middle East. They have channels like the BBC/CNN, cultural educational programs, children channels, and many more. Their funding comes from advertising. They have been rated by Nielsen as #5. They have a channel is the US in New Jersey. It can be watched on line by going to ebru.tv. Ali became our genuine “fake” but FAMOUS anchor!!!

Later on this day we visited an Armenian Church that is on land donated by the Turkish government. Since that donation, the church divided the land and donated half for the establishment of a Mosque and they now stand side by side.