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How and why does Corporate Social Responsibility concern us citizens?

Hello my dear friends! The topic I want to talk to you this week is Corporate Social Responsibility, which Rachel Hutchisson discussed in a TEDx talk. So what is Corporate Social Responsibility, let me tell you a little bit about it. It would be very appropriate to define this concept briefly as the effort of institutions that want to integrate with the society to fulfill their responsibilities towards the society. In other words, this concept stipulates that the corporation behaves respectfully and responsibly towards the environment and people. Actually, this should not be confused with philanthropy. Because philanthropy is unplanned and unannounced, there is no expectation in return. But Corporate Social Responsibility; it is an event that needs to be carried out with planned and strategic steps, taking into account the needs and expectations of the society.

Corporate Social Responsibility is also a perception management designed to create positive associations with the image of the institution. Institutions with their social responsibility activities; they gain intangible values such as loyalty and trust. While abstract values positively affect corporate reputation, financial values will also rise in parallel with reputation. In this context, Rachel Hutchisson advocates that all organizations of all sizes are and should be socially responsible. Of course, at this point, sustainability is very important both economically, environmentally and institutionally. At this point, institutions that fulfill corporate responsibilities, work in a disciplined manner and raise awareness on social responsibility will be sustainable.

At this point, focusing solely on the institution is a very limiting factor because, above all, being an active citizen is our first responsibility. It will be most appropriate for all of us to make social responsibility a principle and to shape our steps within this framework. In addition to this, I think that what I can do on my own behalf is the following: I can and should work in institutions that fulfill the requirements of Corporate Social Responsibility as an active citizen. Maybe I cannot establish a company within the framework of these principles, but I can contribute to the sustainability of this by working with a company that develops within the scope of Corporate Social Responsibility. For this reason, in my future life, the things I will look for in business conditions will be: economic and legal conditions, ethical and fair treatment of the employees of the institution, the organization has a working strategy and policy in line with the expectations of the people and other institutions within and around the organization, never ignoring environmental factors, to be innovative and to include social responsibility areas in the fields of contribution-donation to the benefit of society. At this point, it is a very important factor that you pay attention to these important details. As active citizens, we must maintain our sensitivity and maintain our stance in such situations.

You can also have a point of view on this topic by watching Rachel Hutchisson's speak from the link I left below. My advice to you would be to watch this video.

The Era of Corporate Social Responsibility is Ending | Rachel Hutchisson | TEDxWilmington:

Have a good day with lots of awareness :)

[zeynepdikdus]

Making Nonviolent Communication a Principle

Hello my dear friends, the theme I will talk about this week will be "violence". The person who inspired this theme is Altuğ Coşkun. We had a striking and very valuable conversation with Altuğ Coşkun, a respected faculty member, who was a guest in my CIT301 course recently. We have focused on slightly different aspects of violence, which, unfortunately, is an issue that never loses its timeliness today.

Altuğ Coşkun's first question was, What is the definition of violence? Actually it seems like a very simple question, but I think it is a very difficult question to find an all-encompassing definition. My answer was the physical or psychological misuse of potential power. I still have similar thoughts, but now I consider the concept of violence from a more comprehensive perspective.

Violence in communication is a matter of preference. It is also a matter of preference to make nonviolence a principle in communication in our-selves. At this point, I think it would be appropriate to mention Marshall Rosenberg's Nonviolent Communication. According to Nonviolent Communication, our verbal or physical strategies involving violence are our learned behaviors supported by the culture we live in. Nonviolent Communication consists of four steps: observation, emotions, needs, and requests. Especially the two topics here made me think a lot, observation and requests.

So far, I've seen how much violence my communications involve, and how much violence I have been subjected to. I did not realize it, like many of us. For example, I even had a mistake in complimenting someone. Moreover, by complimenting someone more than necessary in a wrong style, I made that person feel responsible for staying that way or getting better. I was not aware of this before. And it turns out that these are also considered within the context of violence. For example, acting according to my own needs, I realized that I wasn't even ready to hear a "no". I didn't know it was violence to make the other side not be able to say "no." How many unwittingly use violence in our lives, don't we?

With our learned communication styles, we continue the violence without realizing it. So what should we do to prevent this? The most important first step here is to "notice", my friends. First of all, we will be aware of our behavior, expectations, needs as well as the needs of the other party. Then we will take responsibility. Then we will take action. We will join forces with the power of awareness and responsibility. We will make it our principle to act as we want to be treated. For example, I gained this awareness thanks to Bezen Coşkun, with the information Ahmet Coşkunun provided us. With the awareness that they bring to us, we can bring awareness to others like them. We can also choose to adopt nonviolent communication as a principle.

Do not forget about it my friends, a word we say can contain as much violence as a weapon.

Have a good day with lots of awareness :)  See you on the next blog.

[zeynepdikdus]

When you volunteer, everybody wins!

I'm with you again this week with a pretty remarkable topic. It's about volunteering. First, I want to talk a little bit about what volunteering is. Volunteerism is the desire to contribute to the public interest by free will and in a spirit of solidarity, without expecting any material response. So who can volunteer? Everyone. Anyone who has this desire internally can be voluntary. A person I love very much has a word and expresses volunteerism very nicely:

“Everybody can be great. Because anybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve…. You don’t have to know the second theory of thermodynamics in physics to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.” Martin Luther King, Jr.

Thanks to a lesson I took, I came across a TEDx talk on volunteering. The person who made this speech is Kamilla Sultanova. She's a complete source of inspiration. She talks about the power that helping gives people in her speech. She tells people how volunteering has changed their lives, shaped and empowered her life. While she is doing these, she instills volunteerism in people. Sultanova has a sentence that most impressed me in her TEDx talk:

“I've been so paid in so many ways that money cannot meet.”

This sentence of Sultanova reminded me of many precious values that some of the volunteering projects that I had the chance to be a part of in the past brought me.

I would like to tell you about one of the few volunteering projects I have created. When I was a high school student, my school's term attire had changed, so the old clothes would no longer be used and would be thrown away. I talked to my school's clothing store and collected all unused clothes and tracksuits and brought them to the children in need in our village. I didn't have to do this. But I didn't lose anything because I did this. On the contrary, I gained a lot. What we consider as needs are things that vary from person to person, and so is help. Maybe I didn't need those school uniforms and tracksuits, but those kids in the village needed the clothes. Maybe it was not a worldwide volunteering movement, but it was beautiful and meaningful enough to help 60 children. Later on, my school started to give unused and surplus products to people in need after my move. Something tiny that I did was instrumental in another beauty. I cannot even describe to you that gigantic precious feeling that has created in me.

I think human being grows and matures by helping. Help brings a lot of hope to humanity, to the being. It becomes a source of hope for the human being, both for herself/himself and for those around her/him. Yes, maybe we all can't be Kamilla but we all can be changemakers through volunteering.

I strongly recommend you to watch the TEDx talk below. I am sure hope will grow in you.

“Volunteering: empowering others, empowering yourself​ | Kamilla Sultanova | TEDxHelsinkiUniversity”

Have a good day with lots of awareness :) See you on the next blog.

[zeynepdikdus]

Attributing a whisper to the world!

I've already shared a blog with you on a very remarkable subject. But I have to admit, the topic I'm going to talk about today will be about three world-known resistances that have affected my perspective. Perhaps you have heard, these resistances are Suffragettes resistance, American Civil Right Movements and Gandhi’s non-violence resistance.

History has been and continues to experience many bad things about women. women sometimes received more hours than men in disadvantaged occupational groups. There have been many times when they have had to remain silent in the face of abuse. They have been subjected to the fact that the law favors men, that rights and property are unique to men, and even that justified violence against women is presented. And this history also includes movements in which women resonate greatly. One of them is the Suffragette resistance. This movement is the story of women's participation in the struggle, self-determination. The Suffragettes are a women's rights group that worked mainly in England at the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries. They fought for the acquisition and improvement of women's social rights, especially the right to vote. In this respect, they can be portrayed as the first modern feminists. From July 1928, the women's movement achieved its goals by changing the right of women to choose and be elected in the United Kingdom. In this right, protestants resorted to violence. They've been on hunger strikes, they've staged protests. Fires were set and there were even bomb attacks on public buildings. In fact, a woman named Emily Davinson died during the protest, throwing herself in front of a horse at a race. Women even risked death during this period. Women were determined to know what they wanted. There's a rather remarkable film called Ailt Suffragette, and it's a phrase that caught my attention in the film, "We're half the human race you cannot stop us all." In the end, women won the right to choose and be elected themselves.

The other major resistance is american civil right movements, the existence of laws that perpetuate racism in America, which has been a major source of rebellion. The move was aimed at eliminating racial laws and ensuring equal rights for black Americans. One of the most important figures I know as an advocate for this movement is Martin Luther King. Segregated schools, public transport, toilets, water fountains and more continued until the 1900s. Now people are united and have started many actions such as protest marches and hunger strikes. During these movements, Malcolm X replaced the term "Black American" with "African American", which he found racist. In the few sources I've seen, the fact that there were times when protestants used violence didn't make this movement completely nonviolent.

But the resistance I was most impressed with and learned in high school was Gandhi's Salt March. Gandhi is the political and spiritual leader of India and the Indian Independence Movement. He is known as the pioneer of satyagraha philosophy, which is about active but nonviolent resistance to evil and truth. That's what I admire. Against all evil, Gandhi displayed a pure strength that was respectful and humanistic, far from violence and insults. The action I want you to notice here is Salt March. At the time, Britain was entirely responsible for the salt resources in India, and the people of India had to buy salt more expensively from the outside. Therefore, not everyone could access the salt, and this was a big problem. Gandhi organizes the community and launches a march to protest the Salt tax. This ever-growing March has repercussions around the world. Gandhi has a saying that I love "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win" In fact, everything is quite clear. Gandhi, who has always maintained his temperament, has made his voice heard to the world. And even Gandhi's Satyagraha philosophy, created in line with his actions, inspired many blacks who fought against the white regime of racial discrimination years later.

“about Gandhi’s non-violence resistance”

“about American Civil Right Movements”

“about Suffragettes resistance”

Have a good day with lots of awareness :) See you on the next blog.

[zeynepdikdus]

Moving Youth Towards Action and Activism

It is a fact that youth has a potential power on improvement of the world. Also, the thing that brings improvement is change. Youth is the strongest source of this change. We're in the age of technology, and social networks are the reason why youth has such a big impact on change. Now, thanks to social networks, we can organize very quickly and make our voice heard more. Youth activism is one of the best examples of this.

So, when youth has such power, why is this situation not brought to the fore? Taken globally, young people make up an obvious majority of consumers in society. In fact, I think the main reason for this is that the possibilities other than that young people are consumers are not very evaluated. Young people may make up the vast majority of the consumer segment, but they can also be activists and educators. But they are not listened to by adults. They're being ignored. They're not even taken seriously. Besides, youth is the segment that should be most listened, but also they are most ignored segment, by adults.

Check out the currents started by teenagers on social media. Look at Instagram Stories, Facebook shares, tweets of support that have grown like an avalanche. Look at the mobility of young people who turn a little whisper into a big shout. That's exactly what Youth Activism cares about. This community values and prioritizes this side of youth. Youth Activism is where young people can do things freely without adult pressure.

This free and supported spirit is also the center of aid. Instead of ignoring youth, we can think of it as a communication network for help. All we can be a part of it. As a teenager, we can be a member of this group, or an adult supporter who directs young people.

Sam Stevens, who has led leading youth activism projects, has led students from education to action projects on local and global issues.

You can understand why I emphasize the importance of Youth activism so much by watching Sam Stevens' video below.

Sam Stevens - Moving Youth Towards Action and Activism - TEDxSIT:

Have a good day with lots of awareness :) See you on the next blog.

[zeynepdikdus]

You become so simple not to be hard on the people you love that they don't even need to care about you.