{"id":776053,"date":"2025-10-03T08:57:17","date_gmt":"2025-10-03T06:57:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.servethecity.paris\/?p=776053"},"modified":"2025-10-03T08:57:17","modified_gmt":"2025-10-03T06:57:17","slug":"volunteer-spotlight-deren-akin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.servethecity.paris\/fr\/2025\/10\/03\/volunteer-spotlight-deren-akin\/","title":{"rendered":"Volunteer Spotlight – Deren Akin"},"content":{"rendered":"
Our volunteers are a diverse bunch. They come to us from the four corners of the globe, different ethnicities, ages, genders, religions, but the one thing they all share is a desire to help. They are the beating heart of Serve the City. They are dedicated individuals, role models to young people and future leaders. But who are they really? In our volunteer spotlight we introduce you to one of our volunteers and find out some unusual and interesting facts about them.<\/span><\/em><\/div>\n
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Let me introduce you to Deren.<\/span><\/em><\/div>\n
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Where were you born?<\/h2>\n

I was born in \u0130zmir, Turkey!<\/p>\n

What language(s) do you speak?<\/h2>\n

I speak Turkish and English fluently. I also understand Italian after living in Italy for a while, and now I\u2019m aiming for French. I\u2019m starting language courses this month.<\/p>\n

What does STCP mean to you?<\/h2>\n

For me, STCP means discovering the real Paris. I had been visiting Paris for years before moving here, but it wasn\u2019t until STCP that I realized the kind of connections I\u2019d been missing. I love meeting people from all walks of life, and STCP gave me the access (or better said, the privilege) to that.<\/p>\n

When you\u2019re not volunteering, how do you spend your time?<\/h2>\n

I used to think I was a bit of a loner, but in reality, I rarely have time alone because I spend so much of it with friends. I\u2019ve always been a nerd for cinema and music, so you\u2019ll usually find me at the movies or if it\u2019s summer, at a festival. I also read a lot. When I lived in Rome, I had a spot by the river where I\u2019d go whenever I needed to clear my head. Moving to Paris was easier because I found my new reading spot by the Seine, it\u2019s become my little anchor in the city.<\/p>\n

What is your favorite hobby?<\/h2>\n

If going to concerts doesn\u2019t count as a real hobby, then it has to be reading. I truly believe humans are meant to constantly change and evolve, and reading is the best way to stay connected to other people, cultures, and ideas. I studied literature in my bachelor\u2019s, so maybe I\u2019m biased, but books are my lifeline.<\/p>\n

What is your favorite meal?<\/h2>\n

Anyone who knows me would expect me to say pasta, but as someone from the Aegean side of Turkey, our veggies dishes are to die for! My mom makes the perfect vegan karn\u0131yar\u0131k and Bosnian b\u00f6rek, and my grandma\u2019s famous dish was bamya. Honestly, I can\u2019t pick just one, I\u2019ll go with any Aegean or Balkan dish, especially the appetizers. Sorry, I\u2019m greedy haha!<\/p>\n

With which person living or deceased would you like to eat that meal?<\/h2>\n

My grandmother passed away ten years ago, and when the matriarch of a family is gone, it\u2019s hard to gather everyone together again. I\u2019d love to have one last long dinner with my grandma, mom, and aunt (sorry grandpa and uncle! love you endlessly but men are not invited) with all our favorite dishes laid out.<\/p>\n

What is your idea of perfect happiness?<\/h2>\n

Perfect happiness is when I see the sea and nature meet or when I\u2019m at an unforgettable concert. Those are the moments when I feel most alive, serene and grateful.<\/p>\n

Which living person do you most admire?<\/h2>\n

Always my mom. I wish I had a more original answer, but the older I get, the more I realize what an icon she is. She raised me as a single mom, she\u2019s endlessly passionate and loving, and you\u2019ll never find her sitting still \u2014she\u2019s always outside, traveling, moving. She\u2019s the only person I could ever aspire to be like, and then hopefully more.<\/p>\n

Which talent would you most like to have?<\/h2>\n

I don\u2019t know if it counts as a talent but I wish I could focus on one thing at a time. I want to learn new languages, instruments, travel, and do a hundred things at once and end up doing none of them properly.<\/p>\n

What do you consider your greatest achievement?<\/h2>\n

Since I was a kid, I always dreamed of living abroad. There wasn\u2019t a single day I didn\u2019t imagine the life I\u2019d have one day, and now I can honestly say I\u2019m living that dream. I\u2019ve overcome so many struggles alone in the past five years, traveled across Europe, lived in four countries so far, gone to almost every music festival I wanted (next goal: Glastonbury!), built friendships across the world and I\u2019ve never looked back with regret. When I think about the little kid version of me, I know she\u2019d be so proud, and that\u2019s enough to keep me going. I still daydream every day though, I\u2019m only 25, and I plan on living until I\u2019m 100 (in the year 2100!), so there\u2019s plenty more to achieve.<\/p>\n

If you were to die and come back as a person or a thing, what would it be?<\/h2>\n
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Definitely a cat. I just can\u2019t decide if I\u2019d rather be a spoiled house cat who does nothing and gets endless love, or a wild, rare, and mysterious cat always on the move.<\/p>\n

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Our volunteers are a diverse bunch. They come to us from the four corners of the globe, different ethnicities, ages, genders, religions, but the one thing they all share is a desire to help. They are the beating heart of Serve the City. They are dedicated individuals, role models to young people and future leaders. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":115,"featured_media":776072,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-776053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.servethecity.paris\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/776053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.servethecity.paris\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.servethecity.paris\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.servethecity.paris\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/115"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.servethecity.paris\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=776053"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.servethecity.paris\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/776053\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":776054,"href":"https:\/\/www.servethecity.paris\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/776053\/revisions\/776054"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.servethecity.paris\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/776072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.servethecity.paris\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=776053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.servethecity.paris\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=776053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.servethecity.paris\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=776053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}