Our Story In 2010, a working group comprising of relevant sports pupil, artists and local volunteers active in youth work commissioned research to document the needs of young people in İstanbul and in December 2010, IKOS was set up to provide the following : A community involves disadvantaged young people and kids Awareness on Sports and Art as the tools for the empowerment of society Outreach sportive activities to the most vulnerable young people Networking with existing inclusion and sports organisations IKOS invests in empowerment and involvement of disadvantaged young people and kids who obtain soft skills, self confident and shaping at their future with hope via art and sports.In order to reach the aims of IKOS, the activities have been run in 4 main fields: Sport Sport is an effective tool we use for social empowerment. Within sport field, we have been cooperating with Sport federations in the last 3 years. Turkish Basketball Federation, Turkish Tennis Federation, Bilgi University Sport Department, Turkish Sports Foundation, Syrian Forum, Turkish National Olympic Committee, PPI (Peace Players International), Sports Istanbul Limited Company and Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality are important core partners of IKOS in the field of sport studies. Culture&Art We utilize platforms of culture and arts as a tool to approach social issues, particularly for Social Empowerment of excluded groups, such as minorities, refugees, youngsters with physical disabilities etc. Art is an expressive tool that can be used to reflect an issue and by exposing it trigger a search for its solution. IKOS has run Youth projects on intercultural learning based with the participation of social and economical disadvantaged young people. Youth Works Working with young people is a major part of our association. By carrying out youth works we are aiming to reach the youngsters with fewer opportunities and enable them to become active, able members of society. We encourage our young participants to volunteerism, active citizenship and raise their awareness on the issues surrounding them. Networking We bring together NGO’s and CSO’s which are working in similar fields and by doing so create a large international network among them.