The Yunus Emre Institute (YEE), which has been operating in Egypt's capital Cairo since 2010, instills a love of learning about Türkiye and the Turkish language in Egyptian youth through various events it organizes.
The YEE is known as the strongest organization that promotes the learning of Turkish worldwide and operates in more than 60 countries. It organized an annual "Traditional Knowledge Contest" where 24 Cairo YEE trainees, consisting of eight groups, participated in the knowledge competition held in the fields of culture, art, literature and history.
The group that won the competition, which included many questions about the common culture of the Egyptian and Turkish people, was awarded a scholarship for the Turkish courses organized by the Cairo Yunus Emre Institute.
The YEE offers in-person and online Turkish language courses and encourages Egyptian youth to learn Turkish through various events and competitions it organizes for the students.
The courses have been operating in Cairo for about 12 years and teach Turkish to approximately 700 students every semester. The online courses were launched in 2020 after the COVID-19 outbreak.
Two trainees who participated in the online "Meet Turkish" courses held in the fall semester of 2022 with the participation of approximately 8,000 students and who followed the social media accounts of the institute were given round-trip tickets to Türkiye by the Cairo YEE.
Yara Semir, 29, one of the students that won a round-trip ticket, said that she learned a lot in a very short time from the online courses organized by the institute. "I have been watching Turkish TV series for a long time thus I know a little bit of Turkish, but I still wanted to improve my Turkish. Although the course was short, it allowed me to learn a lot and to go to Türkiye, which was my biggest dream," she said, also expressing her thanks to the YEE.
Şehd Hamid, 22, the other Egyptian trainee who won a ticket to Türkiye within the scope of Cairo YEE's events, expressed that Türkiye is a beautiful country and that he wants to get to know Turkish culture.
Hamid said: "I'm not from Cairo. I'm from Port Said. I could not believe it when I learned that the institute would give two trainees a ticket to Türkiye. I was very happy when they announced that I had won the gift at the end of the course. Türkiye is a very beautiful country. I want to visit cities like Izmir and Istanbul."
