The Yunus Emre Institute joined NYU SPS to bring Turkey to their community.
Washington, D.C. - On March 26th, Yunus Emre Institute attended New York University’s Virtual Global Village. The Global Village festival is hosted by NYU’s School of Professional Studies in cooperation with Student Council and Student Life. It is organized to allow students and community guests to share the customs of their home countries and family heritage. Yunus Emre Institute was invited to represent Turkey this year.
This year was the first virtual Global Village due to the pandemic. Normally the program is hosted in a large open university hall with various countries hosting booths. Booths have a wide variety of cultural items like food, handicrafts, literature, and pictures. The event usually hosts live music and dance performances as well. This year the participants shared videos of their past travels and performed live demonstrations of music, dance, and food preparation over an online conference call. The event was also partnered with the World Food Kitchen to raise money for food-insecure communities. This year China, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Greece, Guyana, Honduras, India, Italy, Japan, the Jewish Diaspora, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Russia, Spain, Switzerland, and Turkey were represented.
Yunus Emre Institute gave the participants a taste of Turkey through a brief travel video that showed them scenes from Turkey’s beautiful vacation destinations and an abbreviated version of the institute’s high demand Turkish Coffee Happy Hour. The NYU community loved learning about Turkish coffee from Matt Holbrook, one of the institute’s Public Relations Assistants. The Global Village chat was flooded with positive feedback and excitement about someday trying Turkish coffee in person. The Yunus Emre Institute partnered with the Global Village program to raffle a Turkish coffee set to a lucky winner in the audience.
The Yunus Emre Institute’s staff were happy to bring Turkey to NYU’s Global Village while their community waits out the pandemic safely. The institute was proud to support such a positive program that celebrates both NYU and the world's wonderfully diverse landscape.
Yunus Emre Institute is a Turkish cultural center located in Washington, D.C. and around the world. The institute hosts events and programs that educate the public about Turkey’s culture, history, and language. For more information about the institute’s mission or online programs, please email washingtondc@yee.org.tr or follow @yeewdc on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.