Speaking at the launch of "There is Goodness: Turkey Volunteer Program" held in a hotel in Istanbul, Necmeddin Bilal Erdoğan, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Knowledge Dissemination Foundation, stated that they came together to say "There is Goodness" and wished to be able to spread the message to society with a loud voice that goodness is much more than evil and to tell children that it is possible to live in a world where goodness will prevail in the world.
Stating that he started his foundation service at the Turkey Youth and Education Service Foundation (TÜRGEV), which he pioneered to be established by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan when he was the Mayor of Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality (IMM), Erdoğan said that while he continues his work as a TÜRGEV Foundation Council Member, they continue their struggle to open a different window to the education of students from kindergarten to high school within the New Türkiye Education Foundation (YETEV).
Erdoğan stated that they strive for children to receive a good education at YETEV, that they offer scholarship opportunities to successful students, and that they want children to be introduced to Turkish music at an early age at the Turkish Music Primary School, and said:
"We are trying to open a horizon and help our children gain Turkish music education at a very early age by identifying our unique and talented children at the age of 6 and offering them scholarships according to their income levels. Why? Because there is a need to support Turkish music, our own music. We supported such a work so that Turkish music should be given a chance, and some of our genius children can at least be in Turkish music."
Stating that they are trying to encourage senior academics who want to advance their academic lives at the Knowledge Dissemination Foundation with Knowledge Dissemination Awards, and that the foundation also provides scholarship support to thousands of students every year, Erdoğan stated that it is very admirable that small-scale good deeds are enlarged and institutionalized by the public.
"At a time when there is so much advertising of evil, we also need to advertise goodness."
Bilal Erdoğan, as the President of the Voluntary Organizations Foundation of Turkey (TGTV), stated that they try to support the efforts of all foundations and associations within their organization to institutionalize goodness, and said, "With the experience I gained in education and working life, 'How can we improve the professionalism and institutionality of our foundations and associations in Türkiye?' I worked on it. There is a famous hadith of our Prophet. There is also a very serious awareness in our society that 'one hand does not know what the other hand gives'. But at a time when there is so much advertising of evil, one thinks that we probably need to advertise goodness as well." he said.
Emphasizing that the media has a great responsibility in this regard, Erdogan said that bad news spreads at least 7 times faster than good news.
Erdoğan stated that some news spread evil and continued as follows:
"My suggestion is that some news, let's call them 'evil news', should be censored and published after a certain time. Evil news should not be exposed to people at any time of the day, this should not be allowed. We need to take precautions to prevent evil news from reaching people under the age of 16 through social media and websites. Turkey should be the leading country of these measures. Because there is no society in the world that is as fertile as these lands and spreads goodness to the world. We are the nation that needs to do this. That's why "I would like to thank our Minister for this leadership."
"We need to narrow down the space for evil and make room for good"
Stating that they have recently been working on the volunteering law proposal that they desire as civil society, Erdoğan said that they received the contributions of some ministries and contributed to them as NGOs.
Bilal Erdoğan said:
"We attach great importance to the volunteering law, but we are looking forward to seeing what place it will find on the agenda of the Parliament. Because we really need volunteering to be taken into consideration. In other words, it is nice and nice to explain it dryly, but on the other hand, we need corporate structures to be insured for cases where volunteering requires insurance. We need volunteering to be rewarded in some way where it needs to be rewarded.
We need all our children to be convinced from the youngest age that they can live their lives not only for themselves, but also for their friends, neighbors, relatives, and people in need around them. Evil is growing in the world, we need to accept this. In the Quran, Allah Almighty talks about enjoining good deeds and forbidding evil deeds and commands us to do so. "We need to narrow down the space for evil and make room for good."
