Ahmet Öngün and Erdal Tokcan converted this Peking to Paris rally into a social responsibility project for education. Hundred percent of the revenue obtained from the sponsorships will be given to the Foundation for the scholarships. It is planned to provide scholarships to 250 university students for 4 years.

Community Volunteers is a project for “change,” intending to capitalize on the energy of youngsters to benefit society. Founded in December 2002, the Community Volunteers Foundation (TOG) targets social peace, cooperation, and change through the leadership of youth under adult guidance.

As members of this foundation, the young people work in clubs, communities or groups at their universities to accomplish “sustainable social responsibility projects,” according to their own needs.

In 2009, the Community Volunteers Foundation carried out 727 local, national and international social responsibility projects, with 22,699 youth and over 500 active adult volunteers participating. In 2009, with 91 networks at 79 universities, the Community Volunteers project provided services to 287,152 people in many different fields. Today, the Community Volunteers Foundation offers scholarships to 591 university students.

For more information on the Community Volunteers Foundation, please visit www.tog.org.tr.

In 2009, about 23,000 community volunteer young people gave their services to 290,000 people, with 727 social responsibility projects in several fields. These community projects enabled the youth to become active citizens and to contribute significantly to the communities where they lived.

Scholarships awarded by the Community Volunteers Foundation are different from others because a student awarded a scholarship participates in a social project four hours a week, 16 hours a month and 15 days a year. Therefore, the students work and contribute to the public to earn their scholarships.

By turning the Beijing-to-Paris rally into a social responsibility project, we believe that we are serving as a good role model. All sponsorship revenues are given to TOG to provide scholarships for students. On the other hand, all expenses related to the rally are paid by Ahmet Ongun and Erdal Tokcan.

We would like to thank all of the corporate and individual supporters who have contributed to this meaningful project.

Ibrahim Betil
TOG Chairman

By June 2010, we had paid four years of university expenses for 60 students, thanks to corporate sponsorship revenues, but our target is 250 students. We hope that revenues will increase through individual contributions; therefore, we can provide scholarships for more students.

Many of Turkey’s major corporations came together for this project. To date, we have provided funds up to 560,000 Turkish lira for this project, with 30 corporations participating. However, we aim to reach 2 million and provide four-year scholarships for 250 university students. For their contributions, we would like to thank Gantek, Martı Konteyner, Ford Otosan, Pressan, Çetaş, Eresinler, Otokoç, Adios, Akbank, Akkök, Blackout, Borusan Holding, BRİSA, Calyon Bank, Claude Nahum, Deniz Bank, Dominos Pizza, Eczacıbaşı, Finans Bank, Garanti Bankası, İş Bankası, Karadeniz Holding, Kumport, Migros, Pegasus, TAV, Alcatel-Lucent, Remondis and Şişecam, and particularly our main sponsor, Ülker.

Yörük Kurtaran
TOG General Manager

START: September 10th, 2010 /
Great Wall, Peking (China)

October 7th, 2010 / Erzurum (Turkey)
October 8th, 2010 / Nevsehir, Kozakli (Turkey)
October 9th, 2010 / Bolu (Turkey)
October 10th, 2010 / Istanbul (Turkey)

FINISH: October 16th, 2010 /
Place Vendome, Paris (Fransa)

Duration: 37 days
Total Kms: 14.569 kms

Route: China (Peking), Mongolia ,
Russia , Kazakhstan , Uzbekhstan , Turkmenistan , Iran ,
Turkey (Erzurum, Nevsehir, Bolu, Istanbul),
Greece , Italy , France (Paris)
www.pekingparis.com/route.html