Organized by Kadıköy Municipality annually as part of World Environment Day events, the Environment Festival was held under the theme “Urban Resilience” this year to draw attention to fighting natural disasters caused by geological disasters and climate change. On behalf of our University, IMU Sustainability Office took part in the festival, which aimed to create cities and communities that are resilient to all national and global disasters, the chief of which is climate change, and to disseminate related information.
IMU Sustainability Office took part in Kadıköy Municipality’s Environment Festival with its environment training games and workshops. Through these games and workshops held on June 2, 2023, Friday, the team members, Res.Asst. Ayça ÇELİKBİLEK, Lect. Zehra SAVAN, and Res.Asst. Furkan ERUÇAR, discussed how to create more resilient cities and generate a good disaster management mechanism with the participants.
On the first day of the festival, the team raised awareness among children about ecosystem and biodiversity with the game “Nature Detectives” designed for children. The game was played for three times during the day in Selamiçeşme Özgürlük Park, where the festival was held. In the game, the children were given target cards with items to find inside the park area and they searched for these targets in groups. Workshop coordinators ÇELİKBİLEK, SAVAN, and ERUÇAR provided the children with information about each target discovered, including the characteristics of the living beings and their importance for the ecosystem. Thus, the children gained awareness about the fact that even the parks they play in contain considerable species richness and it is important to preserve such areas in order to sustain biodiversity. After the game, each group were distributed gifts from our university and pots of plants planted by the Office team to grow in their classrooms.
During the festival, our Sustainability team also carried out activities for adults. In the roleplaying game “Climate Resilience” developed by the team member Res.Asst. Ayça ÇELİKBİLEK, the participants were given family roles with different means of livelihood living in different geographical regions to discuss how climate change affects disaster resilience capacity in different regions. In the game, each group assumed the role of a family from a different corner of the world who produces a different product that is suitable for the geographical conditions of the area in order to access basic services such as accommodation, education, and healthcare and to live an honorable life. The families were assigned the duty to survive by maintaining their family integrity without going down below the poverty line. However, throughout the game, just like in real life, the earnings of each family were affected by excessive climate events such as increasing sea levels, glacial melting, deforestation, drought, and storms, all occurring due to climate change and the families experienced an income drop, while some had to face climate migration. The groups were asked to come up with measures that will create opportunities to moderate the impact. Thus, throughout the game, the players questioned the capacity of communities from different parts of the world to cope with and fight climate change and issues such as climate justice.
Another festival event was playing “Before the Storm”, a card game designed by Res.Asst. Ayça ÇELİKBİLEK for young people and adults. During the game, the participants brainstormed about potential short-, medium-, and long-term measures to make cities more resilient to seasonal changes created by climate change, excessive climate events and accompanying disasters. Throughout the game which focused on the disasters of storm and flood, each player assumed the role of an urban administrator or a citizen with decision-making power and then listed the precautions against the specific weather condition given at the beginning of the lap and discussed potential measures to reduce disaster risk in urban disaster management process.
