Alumni Projects

Graduation doesn't mean goodbye — it's just a new role in the Focus story. Many of our alumni stay close, coming back as mentors, volunteers, and guides for the next generation. The story continues, together.

Focus Foundation YouTube Channel

We're launching Focus Foundation's YouTube channel — featuring conversations with alumni and footage from our new-term trainings — to share our story and spirit with a wider audience. Volunteers join as interviewers, camera operators, editors, and content planners.

Focus in Nature — Istanbul Outdoor Routes Guide

A map-based guide to Istanbul's outdoor routes — where to hike, kayak, or run. Think "three routes to complete before your Emler Peak summit," designed to help you build up in nature and made accessible online for everyone. Volunteers join as route scouts, mappers, writers, and photographers.

Alumni Gatherings

Some bonds are best kept alive around a table, on a trail, or under the open sky. Our alumni gatherings are where the Focus community comes back together — to share what's new, reconnect with old friends, and remember what brought us here in the first place.

Alumni Reunion 2025 - Emler Summit

In July 2025, twenty of our alumni came together for something a little different — a summit hike up Emler Mountain. Because a Focus reunion was never going to be just coffee and conversation. We meet where we feel most ourselves: on the trail, under open skies, high up where the air is thin and the views go on forever. Reaching the summit together, step by step, is its own kind of homecoming.

This is what an alumni gathering looks like for us. We climb, we breathe, we remember why nature has always been at the heart of Focus. Emler rises to 3,723 meters in the Aladağlar range — the fourth-highest peak in the massif, and one that rewards patience and effort more than technical skill. The mountain asks something of you — trust in the people walking beside you, and one steady step after another — and gives back far more. Twenty of us made that climb together, and came down a little closer than before.