Daughters of Ataturk Women of Distinction Award for 2000
Oya Bain Winner of the 2000 Women of Distinction Award Oya Bain, a graduate of Robert College, came to the United States as a Fulbright scholar to do graduate work in Biochemistry. In her professional career, she worked as a Clinical Chemist and Laboratory Director in the Clinical Pathology laboratories of several medical centers in Canada and the US. In 1998, she retired from her position as the Laboratory Director from Georgetown University Medical Center, Department of Clinical Pathology. She is fluent in Turkish, English and French. Oya Bain was involved in the Turkish -American community issues since 1970s. She was a board member and secretary of Turkish American Friendship Club of St. Louis. She and her family moved to the Washington area in 1982. Since that time, she has been active on the board of American Turkish Association of Washington, DC (ATA-DC). She held positions as the chair of ATA-DC Membership, Lecture and Turkish Radio committees. She was also a board member and secretary of Assembly of Turkish American Associations (ATAA) in the 1990s and chaired the 1992 Turkish Heritage month. Currently she is the ATAA Vice President for the Capital region, which includes Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia and District of Columbia. She is the editor of ATANews, a monthly publication of ATA-DC and frequent contributor to Turkish Times. In addition to ATA-DC, she serves on the boards of Ataturk Society of America (ASA), Washington Turkish Women's Association (WTWA), and Maryland American Turkish Association (MATA) and serves as a liaison among various local associations and ATAA. Oya Bain strongly believes that the most important mission and function of the Turkish Americans should be to get involved as citizens in the community and in the political affairs of the area where they live. Reaching out to the community and participating in the electoral process are the most effective means of projecting a positive Turkish image in the U.S. Oya Bain lives in Bethesda, with her husband Ralph Bain, a chemist and educator, retired from the National Institutes of Health. They have one daughter, Tuvana, a physician in New York.	No Picture
Rachel Amado Bortnick Winner of the 2000 Women of Distinction Award Rachel (Raşel) Amado Bortnick was born in Izmir, Turkey and in 1958 came as a foreign student to the U.S, to  Lindenwood College in St. Charles, Missouri, from which she received a B.A. in chemistry.  In St. Louis she met her future husband, architect Bernard .Bortnick, and the couple went to Izmir to have their marriage at the Bet Israel synagogue there in 1960.   They subsequently lived in Holland, Israel, and several cities in the United States. Each one of their three children (two sons and a daughter) was born in a different country.   Presently Rachel and Bernard live in Dallas, Texas.  In 1980 Rachel became certified to teach English as a Second language, a profession in which she has been engaged since then.  When demand exists, Rachel also teaches informal courses in Turkish and in Ladino (Judeo-Spanish.). Rachel has been engaged in promoting Sephardic culture and history, as well as Ladino language in the United States for many years.   In 1985 she founded a club of Ladino-speakers, “Los Amigos Sefaradis”, in Oakland, California, which under her 4 years of presidency, held monthly educational programs open to the public.  In 1988 she was featured in a video-film, “Trees Cry for Rain; a Sephardic Journey” about Jewish history and Jewish daily life in Turkey.  She has lectured at many venues and for diverse groups on the history of the Jews of Turkey, and on Sephardic culture, as well as written many articles on that subject in English, Ladino, and Turkish.  She has also done the oral history of the Turkish-born activist and centenarian Albert J. Amateau (1889-1996), which she transcribed and deposited at the Western Jewish History division of the Judah Magnes Museum of Berkeley, California.   Her article on Turkish Jewish women was published in Jewish Folklore and Ethnology Review (XV, 2, 1993.)  She is the founder and first editor of the AAJFT (American Association of Jewish Friends of Turkey) Newsletter.   From 1996 to 1998 she was President of the Dallas Jewish Historical Society. In January of 2000 she founded “Ladinokomunita”, a correspondence circle in Ladino on the Internet, which now has over 500 members.  www.sephardicstudies.org/komunita.html.  In Dallas she continues to be the principal force behind the biannually organized Sephardic Festival at the Jewish Community Center. For her role in publicizing the historic good relations between Turks and Jews Rachel received the Distinguished Service Award from ATAA (Assembly of Turkish-American Associations) in 1992, a TURANT (Turkish-American Association of North Texas) Award in 1999, and the Woman of Distinction Award from Daughters of Ataturk in 2000.
Alev Lytle Croutier Winner of the 2000 Women of Distinction Award Alev was born in Izmir and studied at Robert College before following her own star westwards from Turkey to the USA. She has written and directed award-winning independent films and was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship (the first ever for a screenplay) for her work on "Tell me a Riddle". She is the author of the internationally acclaimed bestseller (still in print which is very unusual for a book published 1989) "Harem: The World Behind the Veil". Her other books include "The Place of Tears", "Seven Houses", "Taking the Waters". Her books have been translated to many different languages. Alev is mentioned in writer Isabel Allende's book Aphrodite.  She divides her time between San Francisco and Paris.
Guler Koknar Winner of the 2000 Women of Distinction Award Profession:  Executive Director, ATAA, ataaoffice@aol.com Summary:  Over four years of service with the Assembly of Turkish American Associations (ATAA) in Washington, DC preceded by a five-year diplomatic career with the Turkish Foreign Ministry in Ankara and Houston.  Native and native-level fluency in written and spoken Turkish, German and English.  Served on Advisory Council for Turks Abroad of the Turkish government (1998-2002) Work History  December 1994 – current  Executive Director: Assembly of Turkish American Associations (ATAA), a 501 (c) (3) non-profit organization. December 1991 - September 1994 Vice Consul at Turkish Consulate General in Houston, TX     August - November 1991 Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Turkey : Department of Council of Europe and Human Rights   December 1989-August 1991 Ministry of Foreign Affairs: Department of Information and the Spokesman  Education:  M.A. (pending): University of Houston - Department of Political Science (1992-94) Juris Doctor: Istanbul University Law School in Turkey (graduated 1989).	Picture Pending
Ayse Oge Winner of the 2000 Women of Distinction Award Ayse Oge is currently Senior International Trade Consultant, Center for International Trade Development Office of Economic and Resource Development and California Mexico Trade Assistance in Long Beach, California.  Ayse also works as a consultant and instructor at North Los Angeles County Small Business Development Center where she is teaching international trade and web marketing. Ms. Oge has worked for CENTO (Central Treaty Organization), an economic and political international organization based in Ankara, Turkey with member countries including the United States, United Kingdom and regional countries, Turkey, Iran and Pakistan, from 1970 to 1978.  Ms. Oge has worked in small and medium-sized import/export companies in the U.S. as marketing manager and owned her own business. She is the author of a book entitled “Go Global to Win” that guides small businesses on how to put together a global organization to increase their sales and profits by plunging into the international marketplace; the book’s electronic publishing rights are acquired by a South Korean publisher to be published in South Korea.  Ayse has also produced her own TV show on global small business.  She is a public speaker and recipient of 1997 UNICEF’s Award of Excellence for her speech on world’s children.  She speaks on global skills as guest speaker at UCLA Extension, University of Redlands.  She was a panelist on women organizations such as 2000 Women Empowerment Conference, Women Who Export, Orange County Association of Businesspeople, San Joaquin Valley International Trade Associations, SPCS International Convention III, Ontario, California and various trade organizations.  She will be a panelist at The Women Summit, March 2003, in Anaheim, California, which brings together 500 businesswomen from California and Mexico. Ayse was one of the eight honorees of 2003 North Star Lions Club International Community Recognition for her community involvement and her work in making the world more accessible to small businesses held on January.  She is an active member of the Los Angeles World Affairs Council and is fluent in English, Turkish and French.
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Judge Gonul Eronen Winner of the 2000 Turco-North Cyprus Woman Achievement Award Gönül Erönen was born and educated in London, United Kingdom to Turkish Cypriot parents. At the age of 7 she decided to do law. She detested injustice of every sort and believed in the ideal notion of justice. To this end she qualified as a Barrister-at-Law from the Council of Legal Education in 1975 as a Member of the Honourable Society of Gray's Inn Court of Law. Seeing the plight of the Turkish Cypriots she decided to come home to her roots and use her services to help her people. She came to Cyprus in 1975 and passed the Turkish Cypriot Bar Examinations in 1976. She then did her pupillage at the Law chambers of Ümit Süleyman Onan setting up her law practice in 1977. When she came to North Cyprus she became a member of the Turkish Cypriot Human Rights Committee from 1980 until 1992 and also took part in the activities of the North Cyprus Strategic Research Centre (NGO). While pursuing her law practice and before becoming a judge she was a part-time English newsreader on Turkish Cypriot BRT Television from 1976 until Jan.1980. She married an Architect in 1977 and has two sons. On 29/2/80 she was appointed to the Turkish Cypriot Bench as the first female District Court Judge on the island of Cyprus. On 1/4/1986 she was promoted to Senior District Court Judge. On 1/7/1992 she was promoted to President of District Court. As President, she resided on the Assize Court from 26/10/76 to 14/9/93. From 15/9/93 until 2/1/94 she sat as President of the District Court of Kyrenia (present day Girne). On 3/1/94 she was appointed as the first female and youngest justice of the Turkish Cypriot Supreme Court Bench. She is today the only female justice of the Supreme Court on the whole island of Cyprus. Being the 7th of 8 Turkish Cypriot Supreme Court Justices she deals with administrative reviews, appeal cases, sits as a court of first instance and sometimes resides as a member of the Constitutional Court, which is composed of 5 Justices. She is a member of the Turkish Cypriot Supreme Council of Judicature, a member of the Turkish Cypriot Legal Board, a member of the Turkish Cypriot Supreme Electoral Commission of North Cyprus, a member of the Bar Council of England and Wales. She belongs to various social cultural and professional institutions. She is a member and the liaison in North Cyprus of the International Association of Women Judges and International Women Judges Foundation (IAWJ); a member of the Society for International Development - Lefkosa Chapter (SID); a member of the Turkish Cypriot University Women's Association; a member of the National Trust of North Cyprus; a member of the Anglo-Turkish Association of North Cyprus. She is also a member of the Turkish Cypriot-French Cultural Association; an honourary member of the Austrian based - Verein der Freunde von Nordzypern- (Friends of North Cyprus Association). And, she is Chairperson of the Turkish Cypriot Football Association's Arbitration Board, which acts as an appeal tribunal from complaints against the Cyprus Turkish Football Association. Being a person who believes in dialogue, she is active in promoting acceptance and respect for the rights of the Turkish Cypriot people, with a view to a possible settlement on the island of Cyprus. She has helped in the work of organizations such as IWRAW (International Women's Rights Action Watch) in compiling information on Turkish Cypriot women. Her other activities involve charity work and she is a member of the Executive Committee of the Charity "HELP". In 1989 she visited the USA as an International Visitor and for 7 weeks in July-August 1997 in the USA, she took part in a Fulbright Short-term Training programme entitled "Administration of Justice under a Federal System". She has also taken part in a Cyprus Conflict Management Training programme and in a Conflict Resolution programme in 1994 in Coolfont, Virginia, USA, organised by The Institute of Multi-Track Diplomacy. She did "Humanistic Transformative Mediation" training under the guidance of Fulbright Scholar Marco Turk and has seen the benefit in continuing this type of training. She represented the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus in the World Women's Conference in Beijing, China in 1995. She was also able to attend the Biennial Conference of the International Association of Women Judges (IAWJ) in Ottawa, Canada, entitled "Vision for a Non-Violent World–Justice for Every Child". In October of 1998 she attended the 1998 conference of The International Association of Centres for Federal Studies (IACFS) entitled "Federalism and Peacemaking" in Jerusalem, Israel.	No Picture