Sevilay Refika Kadıoğlu

She was born in Gölcük as the child of officer parents. She tried to get to know her culture through her summer trips to her hometown of Rize's Fındıklı district, and she heard her mother tongue Laz from her elders. She participated in traditional laz music and dance compilations in Turkey and Georgia. In 2011, she made the album "Ar Lazi Oxorca/A Laz Woman" under the name Eka. After working in Istanbul for many years as a tourism personnel, she was among the founders of Gola and started and coordinated the Green Yayla Culture, Art and Environment Festival, which will last for ten years. The researches and projects she carried out on subjects such as nature culture, traditional life practices, music and dance under the umbrella of Gola helped her to get closer to nature and to find the equivalent of her native language in the world, which she could not identify as a child. Sevilay Refika is an informants artist who continues to follow the ancient knowledge contained in Laz, the language of thousands of years of autochthonous Laz people, to think about nature and people, to understand what is happening, to share her savings at various workshops. And she is the co-founder of Goluri company and mother of her son Şina and still the chairman of the board of directors of our association.