For years, the City of Tomorrow has been working with Stichting Bij de Tijd, among others, in the field of young people on a European scale, according to the insights of Sustainocracy. We make grateful use of the exchange opportunities offered by the European Erasmus+ programme. In all those years we have welcomed and inspired thousands of young people, teachers and education representatives here in the Eindhoven area. People often come up with an idealized image of the Netherlands that only partly corresponds to reality. We then show the major challenges we face and how we try to shape them, including the mindset change that Sustainocracy stands for. In this way we often nuance the image people have of their own situation in their home country.

Travel to Turkey

This time, the City of Tomorrow was invited to participate in the “Jump to Mental Health” project that was to be carried out for five days near Fethiye in Western Turkey. Representative teams from four countries (Turkey, Poland, North Macedonia and the Netherlands) participated in a program to strengthen the mental resilience of people, especially youth. One of the most important techniques according to the City of Tomorrow is that of open, natural and human value-driven contemplation. So look, feel and interpret for yourself and do not rely on (pre)judgments from the manipulative media, populism or marketing from interest parties.

For the outward journey I had chosen Amsterdam (Schiphol) – Antalya. Amsterdam and Antalya are roughly the same size, with a population of around 1 million people. Yet the cities have their own unique character, culture, history and geographical location. Antalya turned out to be lively, with a good modern and accessible infrastructure, spacious, clean and (certainly by the highly inflated, speculative Dutch standards) cheap (in the sense of affordable). The flight had taken 3.5 hours and now we had to take a bus trip to Fethiye of an extra 3.5 hours.

Our five-day workplace was in the mountains near a historically abandoned place called “Ghost City” and also “the Stone City” (Kayaköy). The workplace itself was a green, community-like oasis, with fruit-bearing trees and shrubs that provided a lot of cooling in a mostly very hot climate and surroundings. All kinds of housing, from tree houses to tents and mud huts, formed the accommodation. During five days we were immersed in workshops that could stimulate mental health.

There were also trips, such as the introduction to the abandoned Stone City, an ancient community of Greeks who exchanged the area with the Turks for another territory after the First World War. The Greek Turkish overlapping history and culture of many thousands of years can be seen all over the region. The highlight of the program was the boat trip that took us to different swimming locations along the rocky coast during a whole day. Along the way a rich lunch was offered and there was wonderful dancing to pleasant music.

On the last day I still had time to visit the coastal town of Fethiye itself. The teachers from the local schools, who had visited us in Eindhoven through the same Erasmus+ exchange, had already come to see us at the mountain resort. It was a great reunion with these special ladies and gentleman. This coastal town has known all kinds of names and societies throughout history, all of which have left their visual (and maybe invisible) markings behind. In our modern times, the place is a sought-after tourist destination by the sea, with islands, beautiful hidden beaches and rocky coasts visited by the many pleasure boats as we have experienced days earlier. The town appears spacious, clean, modern, cosy, friendly and with many facilities. Cars were largely taken our of the town while space had been made for biking. Still local people complain about the exodus of young people due to lack of employment and opportunities.

The project itself aimed to provide the participating youth workers with tools and insights that they could also use at home. The creativity that was put into the workshops has clearly produced inspiration. Also the journey itself, the inspiring location, the link that can be made everywhere with the essential values of our existence according to Sustainocracy, the comparison between the way of doing things in this part of Turkey and the home base, getting to know the other participants, the teamwork, etc are all sources of impactful information to be processed for possible use.

We will check whether this actually happens in a follow-up interviews with the participants, as well as the processing of their evaluation of the trip and the program. As far as City of Tomorrow is concerned, there is a solid foundation on which to build further. Many dimensions of learning and experience around the essential values, or lack thereof, are present and a rich treasure to draw from for awareness, new forms of entrepreneurship and design of social structures that promote the mental well-being of everyone. Hopefully we will see many young people from all countries take advantage of our offer and the exchanges that we prepare and further develop with these experiences.