Didem Tereyagoglu
This project began with a night in Taksim, Istanbul—where I met Sercan, a 6-year-old street child with an extraordinary gift for rhythm. Despite the cold, the cardboard beneath him, and the dangers of the street, his darbuka playing stopped me in my tracks. When I asked him about his dreams, he smiled and pointed at the older players behind him, saying, “One day, I’ll be like them.” He didn’t know he was already leading them—with sound, presence, and heart.
That moment changed everything. I promised him—and every child like him—that I would do something. “We...You!” became my answer to that promise. This project is not just research or design—it’s a bridge between those who want to help and those who desperately need it. It’s about hearing, caring, and acting. Sercan gave me a reason. This project gave me a path.
We…You! is a community-centered mobile app concept born from a deeply personal encounter with a street child named Sercan. It aims to empower volunteers, NGOs, and social institutions to connect with and support vulnerable children in real time. This project, designed during my MFA studies, is rooted in social justice, participatory design, and system thinking. It blends qualitative research, field interviews, academic data, and UX/UI principles to create an intuitive interface that makes the problems of street-connected children visible—and solvable.
The app enables users to report a child’s need, which is categorized, geolocated, and matched with the most appropriate response: whether food, education, shelter, or mentorship. Through smart filtering, the system generates action-based suggestions and connects children with support networks—teachers, coaches, doctors, restaurant owners, and more. All actions are logged via national ID-based verification, ensuring privacy, accountability, and ethical data use.
By transforming daily, on-the-ground observations into structured, ethical data, We...You! gives everyday people the power to intervene meaningfully—without needing authority or institutional affiliation. It’s a human-centered system where data becomes advocacy, dreams become visible, and support becomes possible.
We believe in children who think they can do anything.
If you see a child, don’t look away. Make their dreams visible—help them find their future.To design a sustainable, ethical, mobile-first digital system that:
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Collects and processes real-time data on children’s needs through crowdsourced observations
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Guides users with legally aligned action pathways (education, health, food, safety)
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Bridges the gap between NGOs, government agencies, and individuals through location-specific smart suggestions
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Preserves dignity by building a child-first, privacy-protected framework where their rights and stories are protected while help is activated.
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Lack of reliable child labor data in street contexts, especially in high-migration areas
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Invisibility of the daily lives and dreams of street children
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Data collection barriers: Limited time, resources, and infrastructure
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Trust & safety: Designing a secure system that protects children’s identities while ensuring action
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Complexity of collaboration between civil institutions, donors, and volunteers
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Based on field interviews with over 45 children
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Integrated insights from top institutions and researchers, including Prof. Selçuk Şirin (NYU)
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Combined social innovation, cartographic logic, and UX/UI into a single community-led platform
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Designed a data-feedback loop where users and authorities share actionable solutions
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Aligned with UNCRC rights of the child and local law enforcement privacy standards
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Visual identity created around the concept that “you can’t build a future without dreams”—symbolized by the logo itself
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