Officials of the European Union and the Turkish government as well as renowned Turkish writers will join a ceremony Tuesday to recognise the prize winners of a nationwide story contest for Turkish high school students.

The competition called for short stories on the EU’s founding values, like freedom, equality and solidarity. It was organised by the European Commission’s Delegation to Turkey in cooperation with its EU Information Relays, a network of 14 centres across Turkey set up to inform the Turkish public about the EU.

Prior to submitting their stories the 15 to 16 year-old high school students were trained by a group of well-known authors, including actress and short story writer Nilüfer Açıkalın. More than 1,000 students took part in the training.

The prize winners will be recognised by:

• Hüseyin Çelik, Minister of National Education,
• Tibor Varadi, Deputy Head of the European Commission’s Delegation to Turkey,
• Cemil Kavukçu, Gürsel Korat, Özcan Karabulut, Sadık Yalsızuçanlar, and Hakan Akdoğan.

The three winners were chosen by a panel of Turkish writers, a representative of the Delegation and officials of the Turkish Ministry of National Education. They will be invited to a one-week trip to Paris and Brussels, where they will meet with EU representatives and young European authors. The names of the winners will be announced at the ceremony.

The ceremony will take place on Tuesday, 18 November, at 10:00 in Başkent Öğretmenevi, Ankara.

For further information please contact:
Selda Paydak, Press and Communication Manager
E-Mail: selda.paydak@ec.europa.eu
Burcu Nakıboğlu, Gaziantep Chamber of Commerce, Network Coordinator
E-Mail: bnakip@gto.org.tr