[Commpsych] an observation or two as I leave

[Serdar M. Degirmencioglu]

Dear colleagues,
 
After a stay of just about 3,5 months in Australia, I'm going back home to Turkey this week. During my stay in Melbourne, I tried aiding the CP practice focused on immigrants from Turkey and on child-friendly communities. This was facilitated by the CP network here and particularly by Heather Gridley. I am grateful to them for letting me engage in what I truly enjoy doing.
 
I participated in three meetings with parents with young children. The first one was arranged by the Communities for Children team and others were arranged by the community liaison/multicultural aide. 
 
Communities for Children team arranged another session last week for professionals about preschool education and childcare in Turkey and Australia. This was not an easy session - it is hard to work with a group consisting of multiple professionals without offending any of them.
 
I wanted to highlight a sad observation from this session: The immigrants from Turkey have been around for 40 years now and not a single professional - except for those with roots in Turkey - spoke a single word of Turkish. 
 
During my stay here I wrote two pieces about Australia, both of which appeared in my weekly newspaper column in the Sunday supplement of the daily, Evrensel. The first was about the Stolen Generations, which I wrote in February after the public apology. This piece received a good amount of attention.
The second piece had to with McDonald's. About a month ago I visited the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne and was able to ask in person why there is a McDonald's at the ground level - it is huge and as visible as one can imagine. Turned out McDonald's was a big contributor to the hospital coffins and I was not the first one to raise the issue. Also irritating was the big sign I observed at the entrance that noted the big contribution a gambling company had made to the hospital. I put this story together along with a close look at why/how McDonald's focuses on children. I hope to write another piece on McDonald's later on, exposing their games focused on children.
I hope to see some of you next month in Lisbon at the 2nd International Conference on CP.
Serdar
 
 
Serdar M. Degirmencioglu, Ph.D.
 
Visiting Research Fellow
Victoria University School of Psychology
Footscray Campus
P.O. Box 14428
Melbourne, VIC 8001, Australia
Office: +61-3-9919-4440
Mobile: +61-435-120-862
Fax: +61-3-9919-4324
 
 
Permanent address: P.K. 18, Goztepe 34730, Istanbul, Turkey


      
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