Gender Equality Fund supports civil society initiatives that promotes women’s rights and gender equality in Turkey through new and innovative projects designed with as vision of creating a model and systematic change, campaign and advocacy activities and institutional development of women’s and LGBTI+ organisations. The Support Foundation for Civil Society (STDV) with the co-finance of Turkey Mozaik Foundation launched the fund in 2019.
Calls for applications were open between 21 February -16 March 2020. From 28 applications received from eight cities in Turkey, two organisations were selected for project funding between August 2020 and October 2021. These projects have a delayed start date due to Covid-19.
Sunflower Women’s Association (Günebakan Kadın Derneği, Mersin)
Sunflower Women’s Association aims to ensure equal rights, responsibilities and participation in society for women. Their areas of focus are women’s human and constitutional rights; research into women’s participation and opportunities in the labour market; women’s health; domestic violence; the relationship between education and gender equality; and improving gender equality perspectives and women’s participation in local governance mechanisms. The Association provides legal support to women and follows violence and abuse lawsuits. It also conducts monitoring and advocacy work at the level of municipalities in Mersin through city councils.
Turkey Mozaik Foundation will support the project: “Enforce the Laws and Open Women’s Counselling Centres and Women’s Shelters” (Yasalar Uygulansın, Kadın Danışma Merkezleri ve Kadın Sığınma Evleri Açılsın). The project aims to determine the current status of women’s shelters and counselling centres in Mersin Metropolitan Municipality and four district municipalities and to create a public agenda for improvements. These include improvements in the physical infrastructure or availability of expert personnel and establishing a counselling centre and/or shelter in districts that currently do not have one. The association will produce a report, campaign and advocacy guide following workshops with representatives from municipalities and other CSOs and will disseminate these resources to CSOs working on gender equality.
Kazdağı Association for The Preservation of Natural and Cultural Resources (Kazdağı Doğal ve Kültürel Varlıkları Koruma Derneği, Çanakkale)
Kazdağı Association for the Preservation of Natural and Cultural Resources (Kazdağı Doğal ve Kültürel Varlıkları Koruma Derneği), was established by environmental activists all around Turkey with an aim to protect natural, historical and cultural resources in Kazdağı region and its surroundings by carrying out various projects and advocacy activities. Promoting ecological agriculture and clean energy production, prevention of all of damages and pollution in the natural environment due to industrialization, mining and urbanization activities are among the goals of the association.
The project aims to establish renewable energy cooperatives with at least 20 women in Kazdağları rural areas, to build capacity and develop a model that challenges gender inequality by creating jobs for women on solar energy production. Within the scope of the project, trainings will be held on legal and commercial processes of cooperatives and renewable energy. Furthermore there will be workshops on team building, gender equality, and climate change. To complement the learnings from these trainings, site visits will be held to public institutions and other renewable energy and women’s cooperatives to develop an understanding on how cooperatives function and to establish collaborations between different cooperatives. To disseminate the knowledge and experience gained from this project, the Association will prepare a mini documentary series and share with various stakeholders.
