In a small side street off Istanbul’s Taksim Square, Ayse Tukrukcu welcomes patrons to her cute and cozy restaurant. In the bustling Beyoglu area, there is a plethora of spaces offering diverse food but the mission of Hayata Saril (“Embrace Life”) stands out. The restaurant serves regular meals to customers from 11:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., but later the meals are served to “homeless friends.” There is no official registry, but estimates suggest that there are around 7,000 of them in Istanbul. Tukrukcu welcomes them with open arms. More importantly, she employs them — without asking too many questions.

“We don’t have the right to judge the people who work here. Your past is behind these doors, we say to them. We learn about them as much as they share,” she told Al-Monitor.

Besides offering a chance for work, the Hayata Saril community shares information about other job opportunities. It also offers psychological support, financial training and hygiene education. All of it is part of Tukrukcu's vision, which is to not only feed the homeless, but also to try and help put their lives in order. Her restaurant is part of a foundation of the same name and represents a thriving social responsibility project, inspired by the owner’s own life story, now the subject of a popular local TEDx talk, a book and a documentary.

Tukrukcu is a survivor of domestic abuse and rape by her uncle when she was nine years old. She left home as a teenager, but ended up being forced into prostitution in 1993 in the southern town of Mersin by her second husband, and had to do sex work for three years. She was sold to seven brothels around Turkey.