The Turkish Alzheimer Association started a Dementia Friends initiative, called the “Blue Wave”, in 2015 with the aim of raising public awareness of dementia across the entire country. The initiative was embraced by all the branches of the Association, with strong results. By the end of 2017, however, the programme was gravely impeded due to the lack of financial resources. The Association’s aspiration of disseminating the knowledge using digital media tools involved in the initial projection, could not be realised because the necessary funding could not be provided until March 2019.
In February 2019, an invitation to enter a competition for a civil society project, was received from TUSEV (Third Sector Foundation of Turkey). Established in 1993, by Turkey's leading civil society organisations (CSO) and supporting over 100 associations and foundations, TUSEV built a network of CSOs that share a vision of strengthening the legal, fiscal and operational infrastructure of the services sector in Turkey.
Similar to the other 23 CSOs that were invited to the competition, the Turkish Alzheimer Association provided all the details required, including the budget of the Blue Wave App and e-Platform. A jury, chosen by TUSEV, examined the applications and chose the top three projects. The three winners were coached on how to present their projects most effectively, which they did during the “Destekle Değiştir Etkinliği” (Support & Change Event), addressing a gathering of philanthropists. Each explained how the donations were going to be used. An auctioneer then opened the bidding and the philanthropists declared the amount of money they would each donate. All the donations were transferred to the bank account of the relevant CSO within 2 months.
The best donation offered for the Blue Wave project of the Turkish Alzheimer Association was a ready-made app infrastructure. In addition, the cash value donated was 36,8% more than the Association had requested. In the 11 months following the “Destekle Değiştir Etkinliği” event, the app, “Mindhood”, was adapted for the use of people with dementia. It contains a wealth of information, offered to the users in the form of dialogues.
Pictured: A jury chosen by TUSEV examined the applications and chose the top 3 projects, Turkish Alzheimer Association being one of them.
