Our Bodies Ourselves (OBOS) is a book concerning women's health and sexuality which was prepared by a group of American feminist women. This book was the first step that the American women's movement took regarding women's health issues with an emphasis on the woman's point of view. The language of the book is very simple and because of this every woman can understand. OBOS interests a lot of women because it's a special book created by women for women. The book informs women about lots of issues such as their bodies, their health, their rights, nutritional and malnutrition issues and sexual harassment ,etc.

As volunteers of Mavi Kalem and organizers of projects in the field of women's health, we got excited when we first started to deal with the Turkish Translation and Adaptation Project of OBOS. In our opinion, the approach and the manner of conveying information in OBOS is very important, because we are aware of the problem of women's lack of information about their own health.

The attitudes of government agencies are not enough to lessen this problem. Education about reproduction and sexual health are not included in any stage of the educational system. Their point of view regarding women's health consists of their own objectives such as decreasing the rate of birth and this approach is far from making an effective, long-term change.

On the other hand, most NGOs share this point of view and a very small number of them prepare projects about women's health. The womens' organizations in Turkey prefer to heal the positions of women in the political and social areas rather than in health or education. Unfortunately, women's health issues are not "political issues" and, because of this they could not get the women organization's attention.

Our main objective is to make this information attainable to all educated women and others in order to give some light to their lives with the help of this book. There is no other book in Turkey which analyzes women's health in all these fields and that is prepared for women's use. Through this book a variety of topics related to women's health are summed up and we hope to reach women with the help of this book in order to make deep and positive changes in their lives.

The projects include 6 main chapters; translation, medical reading, cultural adaptation, the reading of a consultative committee, test reading and editing.

1. Translation: During this Project we worked with translators who have experience in the field of women's works. Translators share the parts and translate them into Turkish. The translations of most of the chapters have been completed and the translations of the other parts are still in progress.

2. Medical Reading: Medical Reading has been done by a medical editor and we are getting advice from experts in the relevant chapters. Consequently, in addition to the consultative committee, we get some advice from the experts and in this way we aim to strengthen the adaptation period. The adaptation period of most of the parts of the chapters that are translated, are completed .The parts that have been already translated are sent by email to the consultative committee and in this way we get feedback from them. Our medical editor is also a publisher, so we can carry on both the adaptation and medical reading parts in harmony.

3. Adaptation Stage: At this stage, we, as the Mavi Kalem Women's Study Group, are adapting the translated parts with the support of the consultative committee. While we are conducting the adaptation studies we research very carefully. During the adaptation of chapter 1, we needed much research in order to reflect the women's point of view and how the traditional values, beliefs, media and patriarchal views affect women's understanding and their point of view. For these reasons, the adaptation periods sometimes took longer than expected. We tried to reflect the issues about women's health in Turkey by attaching some real life stories and some other texts to chapter 1.The adaptation of the first chapter was also a way to test ourselves as the consultive committee. At the moment we are studying chapters that have already been translated and made adaptive to Turkish needs.

4. The Consultative Committee: The number of women's organizations in the consultative committee rose to 15.The women's organizations in the consultative committee are as follows:

• Women Ethics Commission of the Medical Association of Ankara
• Women Solidarity Association of Bartin
• Women and Children Health Education and Research Center of Capa
• Women Problems Research and Application Center of Diyarbakir
• Gazi University Medical School Hospital Group for Prevention of Violence against Women
• Human Health and Education Foundation
• Women Solidarity Foundation- Ankara
• Women Entrepreneur Association
• Women's Human Rights- New Solutions Foundation
• KAMER Foundation- Diyarbakir
• Kirk Oruk Women Cooperation
• Mavi Kalem Association
• Sabanci University, Our Bodies, Our Sexuality Project
• Turkish Women Union, Besiktas Branch
• Women Association of Van

We share the chapters that are translated and medically edited with the women's organizations in the consultative committee before the adaptation stage and in this way we have a chance to get their advice. Some of the women organizations send the results of the studies that they do with other women groups. One of the women's organizations that is founded in The Eastern Part of Turkey/ Diyarbakir made some research within the framework of the adaptation of chapter one about "the use of tattoo and hızma between women in the east of Turkey". Another member of our consultative committee sent real life stories to us. Consequently, we accomplished the adaptation of chapter one with the interaction of many women's organizations from every part of Turkey.

We held our first meeting with the consultative committee in January. The arrangements for the second meeting are still going on.

5. Test Reading: We shared the chapters with our readers that have been completed after the adaptation period and at the moment we are getting feedback from our testing readers. Test readers read the parts that are finished and they analyze the language and grammatical structure for better understanding; in this way we aim to be more useful to our target group. Our testing readers group is expanding with the outreach of our website, and women from Turkey and from abroad join our groups and participate in the test reading stage.