Side by Side Across Türkiye: Speed Dialogue Meetings Build Intergenerational Bridges for Gender Equality

The Speed Dialogue Methodology

Speed Dialogue is a structured facilitation method designed by UN Women Türkiye to enable equal, time-bound exchange between participants from different positions or generations. In its application under the project, each session pairs one young activist with one experienced activist around a shared thematic question. Participants take equal, timed turns to speak and to listen, after which the pairs rotate and the process is repeated with new partners. 

The format is intentionally designed to interrupt the hierarchical dynamics that often characterise intergenerational interaction in civil society settings, where seniority can implicitly determine whose voice carries weight. By equalising speaking time and rotating partnerships, Speed Dialogue creates conditions in which knowledge flows in both directions: younger participants gain access to historical perspective and strategic experience, while experienced participants engage directly with the realities, priorities, and approaches of a new generation of activists.

The Provincial Series: Six Cities, Six Themes

The Speed Dialogue series opened in Ankara on 22 November 2024, on the eve of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women and the launch of the 16 Days of Activism campaign. The inaugural session focused on combatting gender-based violence, connecting the dialogue to the Beijing+30 review process and drawing on the experiences of pioneer and young activists alike. Participants reflected on the evolution of advocacy strategies, the emergence of new forms of violence, and the continuities that link different generations of the women’s movement in Türkiye. 

See here: Speed Dialogue Meetings in Türkiye Bridges Generations to Revitalize Beijing+30 Vision

The series continued through 2025, with each subsequent session addressing a distinct theme: activism in civil space and political participation in Diyarbakır (14 June 2025); urban poverty and its gendered dimensions in İstanbul (12 September 2025); gender-based violence in Ordu (26 September 2025); the climate crisis and disasters in İzmir (24 October 2025); and economic empowerment in Adana (7 November 2025). Together, the six sessions covered a broad spectrum of the challenges facing women and women’s rights organisations in Türkiye while the consistent intergenerational structure enabled comparison and connection across these diverse themes.

Across the provincial series, participants moved progressively from dialogue to commitment. Many articulated concrete plans to bring the Speed Dialogue method into their own organisations, to initiate joint projects with activists from different generations, and to reframe how their organisations approach internal knowledge transfer and leadership development.

Training of Trainers

Following the completion of the six-province series, UN Women Türkiye convened a Training of Trainers in Antalya (15-17 May 2026), bringing together 13 participants from across the project’s partner network. The training was designed to equip civil society facilitators with the practical and conceptual tools required to design, run, and adapt Speed Dialogue sessions independently within their own organisations, for their own constituencies, and on themes most relevant to their communities.

The curriculum drew directly on the evidence and experience generated across the provincial sessions: the facilitation challenges encountered, the adaptations that strengthened the method over time, and the participant feedback that had shaped each successive iteration. Facilitators were equipped not only with a structured guide, but with a practice informed by real encounters across diverse thematic and geographic contexts.

By the close of the training, certified facilitators were prepared to adapt and replicate the Speed Dialogue methodology within their own organisations and communities, contributing to the sustainability and further scaling of the approach beyond the project period. The Training of Trainers marked a step in the project’s sustainability logic: rather than concentrating facilitation capacity within a single implementing organisation, the project has distributed that capacity across civil society, enabling the methodology to continue beyond the project’s own timeline and to reach communities and constituencies not directly served by the provincial series.

About the Project 

The "Reimagining Gender Equality Across Generations and Communities in Türkiye" project is implemented by UN Women Türkiye with the financial support of the Government of Norway. Running through December 2026, the project pursues three interconnected objectives: strengthening the institutional capacity of local civil society organisations working on gender equality; deepening the engagement of young women and youth-led organisations in feminist advocacy; and building intergenerational solidarity as a strategic response to the rollback of women's rights.