After long conversations and exchanges of ideas, the Political Well-Being Study became a reality in July 2021. There were three main motivations behind our journey:

1- To understand the specific effects of authoritarianism on political activists and mapping a way forward against these effects

2- To be able to address the problems systematically experienced in organizations without excluding ourselves from criticism and by developing solutions

3-To strengthen those who engage in political struggle physically, bodily, mentally and organizationally

So, between July-December 2021, we held our first workshops and met with tremendous interest.

After that, we organized two online panels, the first one titled ” Well-being and Collective Healing in Authoritarian Regimes” and the second one titled “Rethinking Collective Life”.

The interest we received in such a short period of time revealed the demand in this field and encouraged us to continue working in this area.

We started the second part of our story in April 2022. This time, we planned a broader and longer-term work. We set our goal to first clarify and spread “Political Well-being” and a care-based organizing approach; and then to spread a well-being approach that emphasizes economic democracy for citizens and a queer feminist care-based organizing approach that combines individual and organizational empowerment for activists.

We keep on this unique journey by meeting participants from different spheres of social and political struggle, as well as those who have not yet been involved in a struggle and/or organization, but are willing to do so, through various activities. We try to overcome the one-dimensionality, masculinity and rivalry of the current state of politics by implementing different methods and perspectives.

In this sense, Political Well-Being Study continues to be the first of its kind not only in Türkiye, but also in the world.