23rd April International Children's Festival

The children are the gifts of God to the human beings. They’ve always been the smiling faces of homes. They are also important to have a future. But the independence isn’t less important than having children for a future. Independence is like a child for a country. You can’t survive your country without independence. Years ago, our citizens had a great war. They fought against the entire world, and managed to survive our country. It wasn’t easy to do, but they could. There’s no need to explain how difficult it was. But if we’re interested in history, we can realize why the 23rd April is a festival. It’s because people make festivals to forget difficulties in the past and to celebrate their achievements. Our great leader Mustafa Kemal ATATURK made that date such a good festival that we can celebrate the one beauty with another; The Independence with The Children.

What’s the importance of the date? Every 23rd April we remember the importance of both being independent, living in peace, brotherhood and friendship. Why? It’s because, Many children around the world; from USA, England, Italy, France, Spain, etc. come to Turkey to join our festival. We can have the opportunity to introduce our beautiful country to the world. And we can remind the pain of the wars. In all cities of Turkey, children have different activities. They wear coloured costumes; make several games, shows, etc. They are all made to show how good being independent is. The children from other countries involve the festival, too. They wear traditional dresses, sing folk music, dance and show their culture. In the same time, there’s another aim. It’s to remain the Ataturk’s this word: “Peace at home, peace in world” If we’re friends with other nations, if our children and youth are living in peace, there will never be wars. There will be no need to fight. And why is the date 23rd April? As we know, it’s the date of establishing our Turkish Grand National Assembly. Maybe, some people may think why we celebrate this date as a festival. The answer is; Ataturk thought the basics of Modern Turkish Republic established at that date. So the date is resembles us the first step to independence. That’s why we call the festival as “Independence Festival” And the reason of Ataturk’s dedication this festival to the children is that Turkish Grand National Assembly is like childhood of Turkish Republic. It’s the first age of it. We began to fight to our enemies with the decisions of TGNA, after establishing Turkish Republic we could defeat them. That’s why Ataturk dedicated the 19th May to the youth. And now, Turkish Republic is like a man, living forever.