Turkish children generally are open, happy, curious and longing for friends. The boys enjoy playing football (soccer) and wrestling and are generally rather rough in their play, as are boys the world over. In village circles girls are raised with marriage, children and domesticity in mind, whereas city girls tend to have more freedom to choose what they’re going to do with their lives.
Regardless of where the children are raised, they are all indoctrinated into either Turkey’s primary religion, Islam, or into modern Turkey’s founder Atatürk’s version of secular humanism. They frequently learn both. Even so, children are among those who are the most open to the truth about Jesus. Our Lord himself said, “I assure you, anyone who doesn’t have [a child’s] kind of faith will never get into the Kingdom of God.” (Luke 18:17 — NLT) For this reason Kucak has dedicated itself to presenting the truth about Jesus in clear ways that children can comprehend. We do so through publishing children’s program materials and children’s books, writing children’s songs and offering summer holiday adventures and training for facilitators.
As Turkish law only allows the teaching of any sort of religion to children with the written permission of their parents, Kucak takes pains to obtain this permission before allowing any child to attend their summer holiday adventures.
The Turkish Republic is a very young nation, in which over fifty percent of the population is under the age of thirty. Turkish government reports put the percentage of inhabitants eighteen years or younger at nearly 36%. In most large cities children are given a decent education and tend to grow up in a stable environment. However, in the myriad of villages around the country children frequently don’t get more than a eighth grade education and many girls don’t even learn to read or write. Fortunately, these statistics are beginning to change in favor of higher education, due to the strong engagement of Turkish teachers who really care about their students. Child labor is still very much a reality in this country and handicapped children are generally either hidden away in their homes or put into orphanages where they receive minimal care.
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