The Turkish Philanthropy Funds Blog

Turkish Girl Power

2012-01-24T14:28:00.010-05:00

By Elmira Bayrasli

Turkey may be a rising economic star and emerging leader in the Middle East, but it still has long to go to close the gap on gender equality.

Released this week as the World Economic Forum convenes, the global network reports in its annual Gender Gap report that Turkey, the 16^th largest economy in the world, is 121 out of 135 countries when it comes to male-female disparity. That’s a problem. Problem is that it can’t just stay a problem.

Turkish Philanthropy Funds has been doing a lot to bridge the gap between Turkish men and women. Working with partners such as ACEV (The Mother and Child Education Foundation) and Cagdas Yasami Destekleme Dernegi, we’ve been putting girls to school and helping illiterate women learn to read.

Putting girls to school is especially important – and not because the UN Millennium Development Goals says so. Educating girls raises living standards and contributes to a country’s growth. It increases security and democracy. It improves their health (and that of their families) and saves lives. According to Women Deliver, “every year of education delays a girls’ marriage. Girls with secondary schooling are up to six times less likely to be married as children than girls with little or no education.”

Secondary education for girls does so much more than just delay marriage. It improves the lives of the children that they do eventually bare. “Each additional year of schooling for girls reduces infant mortality for their offspring by up to 10%.” These women provide better health care for their children. The children of women that have attended secondary education are more likely to attend secondary school as well and even go onto college. It is a positive cycle of progress that has proven to move communities forward.

But girls drop out of secondary school for a number of reasons:

Expenses: With tuition costs, school uniforms, supplies and books, poor families have to choose which child continues on in school. The child they select is most often a boy.

Puberty: As women start to go through puberty, finding separate facilities for them, or sanitary napkins is a challenge.

Culture: As a girl matures, there is the duel pressure of her to appear chaste and marry.

In Turkey, the number of girls enrolled in secondary school has been on the decrease. According to the World Bank, from 73.29 in 2008 to 71.28 in 2009. That is not a positive trend.

For the next 10 days, TPF will talk about how to improve the enrollment of girls in secondary school as well as empowering adolescent Turkish girls to realize their potential. We’re launching a Twitter campaign under the #gendergap hashtag that will donate $1 for every tweet or RT on empowering girls, up to $10,000. We’ll donate that $10,000 to programs or program supporting young teen girls in Turkey.

On January 31 at 2PM EST/9PM IST we’re hosting a Twitter chat on this topic.

Here is how you can participate:

1) RT @tphilanthropy whenever you see the hashtag #gendergap

2) Provide us information about resources on empowering young girls by using the hashtag #gendergap

3) Point us to an expert working on empowering young girls by using the hashtag #gendergap

Social Entrepreneurship on the Rise in Turkey

2012-01-18T11:14:00.012-05:00

By Zeynep Meydanoglu and Matthias Scheffelmeier

The last decade has seen the rise of Turkey as a regional and global leader with a dynamic and strong economy. At the same time, Turkey has also been facing critical development and democratization goals with poor track records in human rights, women’s empowerment, its treatment of its minorities and journalists.

Can social entrepreneurship - with its potential to identify the right points of intervention – be just what Turkey needs to become a country where everyone can contribute to social change?

This was the question on the minds of everyone last month when prominent members of the American-Turkish diaspora – business leaders, students, academicians, lawyers, doctors and artists - gathered for a roundtable discussion on the future and potential of social entrepreneurship in Turkey. Contributions of Turkey’s leading social entrepreneurs, Ashoka founder Bill Drayton and Ashoka Fellows Ibrahim Betil and Nasuh Mahruki, declared the answer to be “yes”.

Ibrahim Betil, trained as an industrialist and banker, presented a prime example of how a country like Turkey can leverage its growing capacity in the business and social sectors: invest in its young population. This is what Ibrahim did ten years ago. In 2001, he turned his attention to putting in place opportunities for young adults to contribute to positive social action through their own initiative. He founded TOG- Community Volunteers Foundation of Turkey a leading youth organization touching the lives of thousands of youth in 90 universities across the country.

Nasuh Mahruki, an author, photographer and the first Turk to climb Mount Everest presented AKUT- Search and Rescue Association Turkey’s leading search and rescue organization. AKUT has not only saved countless lives but also has become a symbol promoting volunteerism, leadership, and civic initiative in the country. “We push our volunteers toward the deep realization that ordinary people can and must take ownership of their safety in crisis situations” says Nasuh “and by focusing on safety, an issue that is critical to men and women of all backgrounds, we make a broad change in public conceptions about the roles and responsibilities of citizenship”.

Bill Drayton highlighted that the emergence of these leaders in societies was no coincidence. “By 1980, there was a new generation coming up that was tired of the inefficiencies of the older order," Drayton says. “We could see that the historical moment had come for transformation.” It was a point that was repeated by Ibrahim and Nasuh. They emphasized the importance of social entrepreneurs in encouraging others to become engaged citizens and changemakers. "Each social entrepreneur is a role model. His or her success will encourage many others to stand up, care and organize," remarked Bill Drayton. As 2012 gets underway, it’s a good message to go into the new year with. Let’s get to work.

Van Earthquake Relief Fund Update #3

2012-01-11T12:03:00.002-05:00

Happy 2012! Like most people, we at TPF, have been thinking a lot about not only the year ahead, but the year past. For those in Van, Turkey, it was a hard one. The devastating earthquake that struck the Southeastern Turkish city left several hundred dead and thousands homeless. With temperatures below freezing that has become a pressing crisis. TPF is responding.

In just a short time, TPF has raised over $300,000 to help with the city’s relief and rebuilding efforts. TPF’s team held direct meetings with key organizations in Turkey in November 2011 to identify projects that will respond to immediate needs as well as have longer-term impact. Our selection criteria have been, implementation capability, efficiency, financial strength and transparency. Van Earthquake Relief Fund recipients are as follows:

GRANTS DISBURSED
KIZILAY (Turkiye Kizilay Dernegi - Turkish Red Crescent Society) Teams wasted no time in responding to the earthquake. They were on the scene within 2 hours after the first rumbles. The relief items have been deployed from the logistics centers of KIZILAY spread all over Turkey. One hundred one KIZILAY staff and dozens of KIZILAY Volunteers are still working in the disaster area in order to meet the needs of the victims. With support from TPF, KIZILAY provided 15 container houses, with running water, bath, electricity, cooking facility, etc. to the victims. With additional funds coming in earmarked for KIZILAY, we will send a second grant to the organization in the coming days.
Grant Amount: $91,500

HADD (Hisar Anadolu Destekleme Dernegi - Hisar Anatolian Support Society) aims to educate young women of displaced families in Eastern Turkey. HADD activities to date have been focused mainly in the city of Van. The organization runs multiple kilim weaving workshops in Van, two of which were destroyed in the October earthquake. TPF’s assistance will help HADD build a prefabricated workshop to replace the damaged ones.
Grant Amount: $20,000

VAKAD (Van Kadin Dernegi -Van Women's Association) was established in 2004 to address the intersections of gender-‎based violence and women's economic independence in Eastern Turkey. It provides ‎women, primarily survivors of violence and displaced women, with legal and ‎psychological support as well as trainings on women's human rights and health. The organization was one of the first respondents to the earthquake providing food, tents, clothing to the victims. VAKAD continues to respond to basic needs especially of the most vulnerable populations such as disabled and elderly. TPF support provided emergency relief supplies for the victims.
Grant Amount: $12,000

GRANTS APPROVED
KEDV (Kadin Emegini Degerlendirme Vakfi - Foundation for the Support of Women's Work) aims to improve women’s’ economic well-being and quality of life. KEDV has gained vast experience in post disaster efforts during the Marmara Earthquake in 1999. Right after its active involvement in relief efforts, KEDV opened eight Women and Children’s Centers in prefabricated settlements in the disaster region. These centers are still functioning as local grassroots women organizations. TPF will support the establishment of a prefabricated Women and Children Center in Van to provide women and children with a safe, collective space to help them get over the earthquake trauma, and to support women's leadership to recreate their own lives, homes and communities. Grant Amount: $25,000

CYDD (Cagdas Yasami Destekleme Dernegi - Association For The Support Of Contemporary Living) aims to contribute to the formation of a contemporary society in Turkey through education. CYDD provides scholarships to students in Van and has been assisting Yuzuncu Yil University to start the Spring 2012 term on time. With support from TPF, CYDD will build a prefabricated building for educational activities on the campus of Van Yuzuncu Yil University. The urgency of the need was a critical factor in TPF’s determination. The buildings will be finished by March 1, 2012 to be ready for the Spring semester.
Grant Amount: $50,000

PROJECTS PENDING APPROVAL
AKUT Search and Rescue Association (AKUT Arama Kurtarma Dernegi), initially designed for mountaineering search and rescue, became well known for its rapid, organized response to the Marmara quake in 1999, an effort that saved hundreds of lives and showed that AKUT's disciplined approach to citizen volunteering was effective across a broad range of terrains. AKUT's response to the October 2011 Van earthquake has also been remarkable. TPF will help AKUT to purchase equipment that are used during search and rescue efforts.

ACEV (Anne Cocuk Egitim Vakfi - Mother Child Education Foundation) serves communities in need with carefully designed early childhood and adult education programs in Turkey. The organization not only provides an alternative education model to those who do not have access to formal education but also supports existing preschool activities, and develops programs that strengthen the relationship between school and family. ACEV was one of the first organizations out-of-town that responded to the earthquake in Van. TPF support will contribute to ACEV’s efforts in building a Family Rehabilitation Center. The goal is to provide long-term solution to the needs of the families in Van.

We would like to recognize GlobalGiving, The American Turkish Society, Mayor's Fund to Advance New York City, Assembly of Turkish-American Association, Bridges of Hope Project, Turkish-American Chamber of Commerce, Turkish-American Business Forum, Turkish American Cultural Association of Michigan, Turkish-American Association of Arizona, Turkish-American Association of California, Turkish-American Cultural Association of Washington, American Turkish Association Houston, Turkish American Student Association, Turkish American Association of Minnesota, Turkish-American Ladies League, Association of Turkish- Americans of Southern California, Turkish Cultural Association in State University of New York, Binghamton, North Florida Turkish-American Cultural Association and all the more than 500 individuals, who have donated from $2 to $22,000, for supporting TPF's Van Earthquake Relief Fund.

“Happy New Year” shouldn’t just be something uttered at the stroke of midnight at the end of December. It should be something to strive for the next 365 days. Through our project partners, we have seen glimmers of change in Van. When we look to the future we can imagine the glimmers growing brighter. For our part, the TPF team will do everything to disburse the Van Earthquake Relief Fund to make the most impact in the region. That will go towards our efforts to make it a truly happy new year.

Overview of and Approaches to Teachers’ In-Service Trainings

2011-12-19T13:23:00.001-05:00

By Kayhan Karli

Turkey has a long-standing tradition of educating teachers. However, it is not possible to say the same thing about their professional development, which has not been a priority in Turkey. Teacher training is defined in two major areas: pre-service training and in-service professional development for teachers. Regarded as a professional occupation, teaching requires a special training. Teacher training system is provided in three dimensions - field knowledge, professional knowledge for teachers, general knowledge - requires a well-planned and programmed educational process. Pre-service teachers or candidates (trainee teachers) receive education at Universities regulated by Higher Education Commission (YÖK) in cooperation with Ministry of National Education (MONE). In-service teacher training or professional development for teachers is regulated and directed by MONE. Half of all teachers in Turkey have never attended a training program during their professional careers. In our time, professional development of teachers is not only important but also a necessity in the future of learning because:

Globalization. It’s more than economics. Globalization is social. As we witness massive migration from underdeveloped cities/countries to more developed cities/countries, people who go through various social changes have difficulties in adapting and continuing their living habits. Learning becomes important and will occur in a multicultural setting.

Technology. Planning learning environments where learners are independent of technology is impossible. The new millennium’s student is defined as “knowledge builder, multimedia creator, collaborative learner, inquirer, experimental learner through real life and simulations, and an individual who can learn for everyone and for the sake of his/her own needs.” We have to ask “How can our teachers be efficient and competent in an environment where especially Web 2.0 technology is used widely?” Teachers won’t disappear. But they do need to use technology efficiently and design learning and its environment according to the structure of the new millennium. In other words we need teachers, who have web sites and write blogs; who can use social media tools like Facebook, Twitter etc. as a learning tool; and who can transform mobile phones into a learning tool, instead of dismissing them. Today, in an environment where even Presidents are using Twitter and conveying information firsthand; teachers who do not use new technology will stay behind of their students.

As TALIS (Teaching and Learning International Survey) results show, in Turkey, about three quarter of teachers are under 40 years old; they are the children of the digital age and they can adapt easily. This is Turkey’s competitive advantage over developed countries. In the last years, Turkish Ministry of National Education has provided all schools with Internet connection and even some village schools have computers now. Teachers, who can own the digital transformation in in-service trainings, will also be able to transform learning.

Brain and intelligence research. There are 79 faculty of education and 64 school of medicine in Turkey. But, none focus on brain and learning research. In the last quarter of the 20th century we tried to understand brain with experimental studies on mice. With the advancements in technology amazing discoveries have been made and experiments on animals have been replaced with new imaging techniques like fMRI. These discoveries showed that every individual has a unique way of learning. It is not hard to foresee that the answer to the question “How are we going to learn?” may change a lot as we learn more about our brains in the near future.

While we evaluate learning in the light of these three factors, the most important questions are: “Who is the learner? Is learning only for students or for everyone? For teachers to catch up with the new era should they concentrate on life-long learning?”

My father knew radio very well. He used television widely. He has encountered with computer recently and has been trying to comprehend it. Advancement in technology has changed how even the radio and television are used. Today, he needs the help of his grandson, my son, to be able to use the first two. My father is still learning in his 70s. But, the interesting part is he is learning from today’s children. In the figure below, which defines teaching very well, teaching as a profession is evaluated. The world is getting “smaller and more complex” so teaching has to be redefined as life-long learning as well as personal development.

Figure: A Framework for Understanding Teaching and Learning, Darling-Hammond & Bransford (2005, p. 11)

How do we do that? As Howard Gardner mentions in his new work “Five Minds for the Future”, we have to work on a learner’s profile. We have to teach individuals to master a discipline, use creative thinking, and infer strategy via synthesizing. New era’s teachers should be able to think differently, respect to differences in every sense, and behave ethically. Without forgetting that the teaching profession is a clinical one, we have to create a sustainable, hybrid, and a replicable model that will support master-apprentice, supervision, and mentoring relationships. Ogretmen Akademisi Vakfi has been training teachers from all around Turkey with this vision in mind. The goal is to establish an education system where all parties involved think critically and analyze skillfully.

Words To Inspire

2011-12-13T13:00:00.002-05:00

By Dicle Kortantamer

“Why didn’t you go to work for Google?” someone asked after I graduated from computer engineering. I had gone into banking. When I graduated in 1998, Google was just being incorporated as a private company and technology talent primarily existed in the West. In 2011 that’s different, and that’s a good thing. Many new career opportunities are created every day. Technology isn’t confined to Silicon Valley. People from Turkey and around the World are inventing solutions to solve global problems. It is a tremendous opportunity. And, it all starts with education.

The education of future generations is so important. Randomly, we leave behind a whole group of children, whose talents are wasted and dreams are unrealized because they do not have equal access to quality education. Underutilisation of human potential is extremely costly. For individuals, this has a direct and serious impact on their lives: they are more likely to drop out of school, be unemployed or earn a dramatically lower income during their lifetime. For the world, the cost is not only to the economy. It is also in terms of missed opportunities, great inventions, entrepreneurs and leaders.

So, how do we prepare all children for an unpredictable future with the skills that will enable them to fulfill their potential? Passing on mere facts isn’t helpful. Creativity, critical thinking and collaboration become key to effectively recognizing and solving problems. It is a bit like learning to think like an entrepreneur or an inventor.

What if every child had the chance to learn these skills? What if we engaged the most skilled to help accomplish this? Those thoughts are what inspired me to leave a career in banking and become a social entrepreneur. I am the founder of 'Words to Inspire'Words to Inspire, an educational charity based in the UK. We envisage a world in which all children and young people have access to quality education and are inspired towards achieving their dreams. We believe that engaging skilled individuals in solving the most difficult problems in their community can be powerful and it can be done sustainably by creating a win-win situation for everyone involved.

I have a passion to give back to the community that educated me, so Turkey became our first country of operation. Although Turkey has made significant progress, many children are still falling behind. Only 7% of the lowest socioeconomic quartile has a chance to go to a school that provides world class education. Furthermore, half of the 15 year-old have not acquired critical life skills due to drop outs or achievement gap.

Our vision with our first project ‘Develop to Learn’ is to establish a free, world class, interactive digital library. We engage local university students through their final year projects in developing digital games that advance children’s ability to imagine, experiment and collaborate. Given the major initiative by the government to give every student a tablet computer within the next three years, this digital library has the potential to reach and transform the lives of 16 million children in K-12 education. Additionally, the project advances university students employability skills through engagement in a real project.

Human talent is extraordinary when it is nurtured. It is true that immediate needs like food and shelter are critical to a child’s well-being. We need, however, to aim higher and provide all children with equal opportunity to uncover their full potential. That will empower us to create a future full of hope for all of us. All we need is a small action from each individual to start the ripple effect. Let’s get it started...

View from the UN on the Future for Women - Part 2

2011-10-26T11:02:00.001-04:00

By Ayca Ariyoruk

(Editor's Note: This post has been cross-posted at onphilanthropy.com )

In our previous issue, we carried the first part of an article based on an interview with Michelle Bachelet, former President of Chile and now head of UN Women. In Part 2, Bachelet talks to Turkish Philanthropy Funds about women, leadership, the “mommy careers” and why women’s participation in politics is good for the country.

What drives a woman to power?
Michelle Bachelet was the daughter of an air force general loyal to the Chilean President Salvador Allende, the world’s first democratically elected Marxist president. When the socialist Ricardo Lagos was elected president in 2000, Bachelet was first named Minister of Health and in 2002 the Minister of Defense. In that role, she was also the head of the military, an area which overwhelmingly remains in the male domain. What drove her to the position, we asked. “Our democracy was broken…There was a lack of a bridge between the military and the politicians” she explains, and for that she needed power. “There are two sources of power, one is the power from position, the other power from knowledge” she says. That’s why she studied military strategy at Chile's National Academy of Strategy and Policy and at the Inter-American Defense College in Washington.

Were there any occasions where she felt she was at a disadvantage because she was a woman? “There are always challenges when you start something new, and of course, people thought I might have a hidden agenda… That’s why you work openly and select a good team.”

Do women choose “soft power” issues such as development and social needs over the “hard-power” matters such as national security and defense policy? She protests. “There is nothing soft about social issues… Social protection, housing, education, these are important questions demanding serious economic and social decisions…true, women find these issues closer to heart…” Also true, she adds, “there are structural barriers against women’s participation in security [areas].”

An unorthodox politician at the national stage
When Bachelet was elected as Chile’s president in January of 2006, she promised “citizen democracy” based on greater participation and gender equality. Half of her cabinet members were women. How did she ensure she did not appoint a woman over a qualified man in her selection? “I can easily reverse the question” she quickly responds. The governments and cabinets around the world have more men than women. “How do they ensure they are not appointing a man over a qualified woman?” Both men and women have to be qualified, that’s why there are such things as “ selection criteria.” The bottom line is “equal representation will give you comprehensive policies that better represent the realities of your country.”

She believes quotas work. Of the 28 countries that reach or exceed UN’s 30 percent goal for women representation in elected legislation, at least 23 have adopted the so called positive discrimination. Turkey is one of the countries that has not. At 14 percent, women’s political participation in Turkey falls significantly below the European average of 22 percent.

Currently there are 19 elected heads of states or governments, I say softly, not really intending it as a question. “It is now 20” she corrects me, referring to the recent election of Thailand’s Yingluck Shinawatra as Prime Minister. Not all powerful women are “gender sensitive,” she says, recalling a meeting with a group of women executives in Davos. “Some don’t like the gender perspective; they tell me I am here not because I am a woman but because I am good at what I do.” Those women are fortunate, believes Bachelet, “they have been born in a cuddle of gold” or they don’t realize they came to where they are “despite” being a woman. Especially young women in the developed world who don’t face discrimination personally are not aware of the “structural conditions that disable woman.” It is clear Bachelet sees a responsibility for women in the position of influence to empower and enable other women.

Do women really have a choice?
Most women do not work, because they don’t have the choice, but some prefer to stay home or choose the “mommy route” in their careers, sacrificing their professional ambitions for family. Should all women work? If so why, I ask her, conscious of the fact that most of UN’s focus is on the developing world, where women are still struggling for basic rights.

“Every woman’s situation is different” she responds. The key question we should ask ourselves is whether women “really” have a choice. “Our job is to make sure when a woman chooses to work, they can work, that they don’t have to choose between their reproductive rights and their jobs, and that they have access to affordable child care.” There are multiple benefits of working, she adds, “income, independence, possibility for growth, social contacts, and contribution to the economy.”
The same principle applies to the tension globalization has created between modernization and traditional values to an extent that it has dissuaded some governments from promoting women’s rights. Should a woman have the choice to cover her body, or is that an inherently degrading act for women? Again, it is a matter of “real,” informed choice, Bachelet explains.

A solid track record
Bachelet’s most loyal supporters were people from the poorer districts of Santiago. She succeeded as a single mother and a self-professed agnostic in a conservative, Catholic country. It was only in 2004 that Chileans were given the right to divorce, despite fierce opposition from the Roman Catholic Church. During her presidency, she signed a decree allowing the morning-after contraceptive pill to be given to girls as young as 14 without their parents' consent.

As a defense minister she improved access for women to the military and the police force, and saw that women would be admitted for the first time to the naval academy. As president, she made sure that women had the right to breastfeed at work. Not only did she turn around Chile’s economy during the financial crisis, she established ambitious social protection programs for women and children, despite it. With the billions she saved from the revenues of copper sales, Ms. Bachelet’s government legalized alimony payments to divorced women and tripled the number of free child care centers for low income families.

Despite some criticism that she was too hesitant to call on the military to respond to Chile’s earthquake, she left office with an 85 percent approval rating, the highest since Chile went from dictatorship to democracy in 1990. And she had done it all, alone, without a prominent husband that typically propelled other women to become presidents in Latin America.

Macho to maternal: a new kind of leadership style
Chosen by Ban ki-moon, the UN Secretary-General, for her “uncommon ability to create consensus,” Bachelet is often described as the “Anti-Thatcher.” She is one of the first women leaders to reject male codes of power and embrace female characteristics of leadership. What is the Bachelet leadership model, I ask. “I am a doctor by training” she says, “I see someone having a heart attack, I will act” she says, not call a committee meeting. But she believes in “building legitimacy in what you want to do…strong alliances, speaking the truth… people must have ownership. This is especially true for the UN… Every region can have a particular approach, it is not fire-works, [empowerment] has to be sustainable and progressing, inclusive, with everyone’s participation.”

Continuing to build Van

2011-10-25T10:09:00.000-04:00

This morning a 2-week old baby was pulled from the rubble in Van, Turkey. It was remarkable news amid a grim situation. Sunday's 7.2 earthquake in Van, Turkey has been devastating.

Southeastern Turkey was already an economically deprived area. With few jobs and educational opportunities, its citizens have struggled for a long time. It has been an area that Turkish Philanthropy Funds (TPF) has worked in for a long time. Partnering with ACEV (the Mother-Child Education Foundation), HADD (Hisar Anadolu Destek Dernegi, CYDD (Cagdas Yasami Destekleme Dernegi) and others has been focused on improving literacy, gender equality and economic prosperity in the region. Help us continue to maintain our advances - and not let the earthquake be a slide backward.

Turkish Philanthropy Funds is committed to building and advancing communities throughout Turkey. Van needs our help today.

View from the UN on the Future for Women

2011-10-24T14:37:00.003-04:00

By Ayca Ariyoruk

(Editor's Note: This post has been cross-posted at onphilanthropy.com )

Recently, Michelle Bachelet, former president of Chile and the new head of the United Nations supra-entity on women, spoke with Turkish Philanthropy Funds about several topics, including women, philanthropy, and power. Today, as the UN celebrates its 66th birthday and a humanitarian response is mounted to help survivors of an earthquake in Turkey. Thi is Part 1 of this timely discussion.

UN Women is "a baby of UN reform" says Ms. Michelle Bachelet, who until last year was best known for being the first female president of Chile, and the first female defense minister in all of the Americas. Ms. Bachelet, who has broken every mold for the betterment of her country, is now ready to do the same, this time for the world's women. The UN entity she leads supersedes the merger of four UN entities mandated with women empowerment and gender equality. She is now the under-secretary General of UN Women and is tasked to raise over $500 million in three years with a mission to make the UN a more powerful advocate for women. Recently, she sat down with Turkish Philanthropy Funds in the new offices of UN Women in New York. Investing in girls and women in Turkey is a top priority for Turkish Philanthropy Funds, a New York based community foundation serving the Turkish American diaspora. In response to the 7.2 magnitude earthquake yesterday in the eastern province of Van, TPF has established an emergency fund to direct philanthropic support to relief efforts on the ground. Since its inception in 2007, TPF has raised over $13.6 million. Education and women empowerment grants constitute the majority of TPF's giving.

A new partner to the philanthropic community
Since assuming her role at the helm of UN Women in January 2011, Bachelet has so far raised about $230 million of the $500 million in contributions and pledges. Raising money is not easy in this financial climate, she acknowledges. "Traditionally our major donors had been governments." Spain and Norway are at the top of the list, which also includes countries like Canada, the United States, Japan, and the Netherlands. But like many other non-profits, UN Women is also turning increasingly towards the private sector and to the wealthy individual philanthropists. She confirms UN Women has been following the Forbes magazine billionaire list closely. "In the world, there are more than one thousand billionaires; a huge proportion of the wealth of the world... and many of them have been contributors to the UN already...Bill and Melinda Gates, Ted Turner, George Soros."

She adds Ms. Güler Sabanci to the list, Turkey's most powerful businesswoman who took over as board chairman of the Sabanci conglomerate in May 2004 after the death of her uncle, Sakip Sabanci. Bachelet visited Turkey in May 2011 to co-host a UN conference to unlock the economic potential of rural women to accelerate development. While there she met with Güler Sabancı and had her sign the Women's Empowerment Principles, which offers guidance to businesses on how to empower women in the workplace, marketplace and community. UN Women has "not only all the possibilities, but all the will to reach many of the philanthropists" says Bachelet, yet she argues it is not all about the money. UN Women seeks joint ventures with other organizations and individuals: "how we do things together [for a] winning possibility" is more important. UN Women partners with local initiatives as much as possible. Turkish Philanthropy Funds and UN Women, for instance, share a common local grantee partner as both provide funds to Mother Child Education Foundation (Anne Çocuk Eğitim Vakfı) in Turkey.

Why give through UN Women instead of donating directly to the local NGOs or philanthropic initiatives, I ask. She is not against direct giving; on the contrary, she supports it as long as the giving is targeted and contributes to national capacities. Still, UN Women has a comparative advantage: an unmatched global reach. "[UN Women] has representation in 75 countries with capacity." That alone has a significant added value. "I truly believe in many parts of the world, you don't need to reinvent the wheel. There is a lot of experience that can be shared...UN has the potential to take successful local approaches... [come up with a] a pilot plan that can be transferred to another place according to their own circumstances... and escalate progress [based] on internationally agreed upon goals."

Such internationally agreed upon goals are viewed by many observers as lofty and unrealistic. Can the world achieve gender equality by 2015 as targeted by the UN Millennium Development Goals? Not likely, but that's not the only concern for UN Women.

"In many countries, the data on the status of women is inadequate and research is needed in specific areas" she continues. "There are so many places doing so much research but [do we] know if it [benefits the women?]" Bachelet clearly sees the role of UN Women as a knowledge hub and a global network of people where all the information and expertise through research can be brought together. It is not an easy task, she acknowledges, given the number of actors involved. Diaspora philanthropy organizations are new additions among these players. Likewise, they emphasize intellectual giving through social and human capital transfers. In this crowded field, coordination and sharing of information by international organizations becomes all the more important.

Read Part 2.

Van, Turkey Earthquake Relief Fund

2011-10-23T22:54:00.000-04:00

All of us at TPF have been saddened by news of the terrible earthquake that has struck the eastern province of Van in Turkey. Kandilli Observatory and Earthquake Research Institute of Turkey has estimated that between 500 and 1,000 people may have perished in the 7.2-magnitude earthquake. Our thoughts are with the injured and the families of the victims. We extend our deepest condolences to all families who lost their loved ones.

We would like to convey our sympathy and solidarity by establishing the Van Earthquake Relief Fund at TPF. 100 % of your contributions will go to AKUT, Kizilay and TPF grantee partners who are directly involved with Van, to help victims recover from the devastating effects of the earthquake.

To contribute to the Van Earthquake Relief Fund, click here.

You may also contribute to the Van Earthquake Relief Fund by sending your check to:
Turkish Philanthropy Funds
Re: Van Earthquake Relief Fund
216 East 45th Street, 7th Fl.
New York, New York 10017
Please make your checks payable to Turkish Philanthropy Funds and indicate "Van Earthquake Relief Fund" on the check.

For additional information, please email info@tpfund.org .

Immigrant identity crises post 9/11: Women are the solution

2011-09-09T12:04:00.003-04:00

By Şenay Özdemir

I am a Turkish journalist. I am also Dutch and a Texan. I am a woman, a feminist, a mother, a lecturer, a soloist and a world traveller. I am also Muslim. Yet, since 9/11, my Muslim identity counted more than any other characteristic that has contributed to who I am today. Far worse is the western media’s attributes of the actions of very few Islamists to an otherwise peaceful faith with millions of followers.

There is the common people’s religion and than there are the Islamists, the extremists who follow a violent ideology. In other words, not all Muslims are Islamists. And my identity is far more complex to be defined by faith alone. I grew up in Europe with a strict secular upbringing and I find such homogenous “branding” of Muslims frustrating. Prejudices are for the lazy and for the intellectually weak. Why can’t Muslims experience religion as individuals?

A few years back, as part of an international visitor’s program I met with a fellow journalist in the United States. We ended up talking about motherhood, journalism, relationships and family ties, but nothing on religion. We had more in common than what separated us. The fact that she was a Christian and I was a Muslim had nothing to do with what we shared with one another.

The same principle applies to the American identity. Americans are like a smorgasbord, the Swedish buffet which offers endless variety. They are liberals, they are conservatives, they are rich and they are poor. Not all of them are as conservative as Sarah Palin, or as liberal as Rachel Maddow, certainly not all are racists as the Klu Klux Klan. Neither are Muslims.

I am an optimist. Changes in Islam will come from Muslim women as they are endlessly being questioned about their religion. That’s why we have the urge to know more about our faith than most counterparts from other faiths. Such questioning is good for the entire community. What does one truly know about her religious and cultural identity? Does a Muslim woman have a religion of faith or has she adopted the family and national traditions as her own? Does she cling to the old ways and fight-off any changes to customs as an infringement of her heritage? Does she find her new cultural surroundings uncomfortable or even irritating?

Women have been on the forefront of the protests in the Arab uprisings. They stood up for their rights; they ran equality campaigns, advocated multiculturalism and fought the extremists. Women have been the first victims of extremism, and that’s why they are desperate to make changes. It needs not to be the Western way, but our way, and of our own making.

Due to easy access to information on internet, Muslim women know they have rights. They are more educated and more women are literate. They do not accept inequality anymore, which is why they talk, discuss and write about delicate issues.

I wrote about women and sex in my first book The Wax Club, so did many other Muslim authors. The North African author Nedjma proved in her erotica novel Wild Fig that Muslim women can write about sex. When asked why she has chosen that topic, she said:

It all happened after 9/11. I wanted to break down the negative image of Arabic women by writing about love and erotica. By showing that not all Arabic women are veiled and by explaining that the Western perspective is too much one-sided. And I wanted to shock the Arab man with a story about female sexuality. In the Maghreb sex is a taboo; you don’t talk about it, let alone write about it. Wild Fig is my protest against both parties.

My hope is that more Muslim women and the next generation of Muslim women will see their faith as means to a new way of life, one that is ready to tackle the difficulties of the twenty first century. As the famous scholar Akbar S. Ahmed said: “We should not approach Islam as an exotic and different world. It shouldn’t be the Islam versus the West, it should be Islam in the West.”

Şenay Özdemir is a Dutch-Turkish journalist and a women’s rights advocate. She gained fame as the first Turkish TV host in Europe. Currently she is a lecturer/researcher at the University of Texas. Follow Senay on twitter: www.twitter.com/senaytweets.

The Final Countdown: Young Turks Climbing Mountain Kilimanjaro to Raise Funds

2011-08-25T11:30:00.005-04:00

Editor’s Note: On August 28, The Hakuna Matata team is taking on Mountain Kilimanjaro in Tanzania to raise money for underprivileged students in Turkey. They aim to raise 28,000TL (roughly equal to 15,655 USD or 10,877 Euros). They’ve already raised 17,774 TL. The team takes its name from the Swahili phrase ‘hakuna matata’ which translates "no worries, no problem" in English and, “bos ver, dert etme) in Turkish. The phrase gained international recognition through the movie Lion King which devoted a song to it. The movie takes place nearby the Kilimanjaro Mountain.

We are eight volunteers from Turkey planning to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro at the end of this month. Having lived in the US, UK and Canada for six plus years, we have embraced the custom of philanthropy, and dedicated our climb to a cause that we personally care about. Through the support of Toplum Gonulluleri Vakfi (TOG)'s Genclere Deger (Valuing Young People) initiative we will be hiking for Adim Adim (translates roughly as “Step by Step”). Adim Adim is a young organization, founded by college students and young professionals who are united by the sentiment that “there has to be more to life" than work (in Stacie Orrico’s wise words), and is dedicated to empowering the Turkish youth.

What attracted us the most to this organization is the need to raise awareness and funds for students who were not as lucky as the eight of us. The funds will assist young adults on financial aid, and will enable them to be active outside of the classroom through extracurricular activities. Through this cause, we hope to help cultivate a youth who have a better understanding of what being a citizen of the world means, which we have learned to appreciate during our time living outside of Turkey.

To learn about our personal stories, visit our webpage, and to support our initiative, visit our contribution page. For more information about our team, progress, training, and how close we are to our departure date, feel free to talk us through our Facebook or follow us on Twitter: @hakunamatataTR

with love and gratitude,

Hakuna Matata Team

(Ayşe, Begüm, Doruk, Itır, Jean, Selin, Şirin, and Volkan)

Crossing the digital divide or stuck at the border?

2011-08-11T10:04:00.004-04:00

by Filiz Bikmen

(Editor’s note: Turkish Philanthropy Funds partners with Global Giving to help Turkish NGOs tap online fundraising networks. In her guest blog post for TPF, Filiz Bikmen discusses the opportunities and challenges of using online giving platforms in Turkey. Filiz Bikmen's post has been cross-posted at Alliance Magazine.)

I commend globalgiving and other similar platforms, many of which are US-based, in their ability to mobilize the power of the internet to help charities and donors cross the digital divide. Needless to say, I was both pleased and frustrated to learn that globalgiving planned a visit with Turkish charities earlier this summer. Pleased because it offers charities the opportunity to showcase their good work and raise funds from donors all over the world… frustrated because Turkey still lacks any sort of similar mechanism – on or off line. Given this scenario, should we focus our efforts on helping Turkish charities cross that digital divide and join the global fundraising movement or focus more on building similar systems at the national and local level? Or both?

Our late and esteemed colleague Olga Alexeeva (A suggestion to improve fundraising in emerging markets: just a technical issue, 27 July 2011) just recently touched on similar issues regarding the pros and cons of fundraising and, in general, ways to make (giving, and) repeat giving easy and accessible in emerging countries. I could not agree more. Bearing great resemblance to Russia, there are practically no credible channels to recruit donors for one time or regular/repeat donations to charities in Turkey. Worse yet, there is no CAF office or any CAF-like organization whose sole mission it is to increase the amount and effectiveness of giving in Turkey. At best there are a handful of charities running limited time fundraising campaigns and a growing cohort of charities which are appreciative but tired of having the EU as their only donor, and are keen to diversify. There have been attempts made in good faith to address this gap, but the honest truth is that we are not very far from where we started. The gap between charities and donors remains.

As such, I was quite curious to learn what globalgiving Field Representatives Shahd AlShehail and Isabel Nicholson would uncover in their meetings with Turkish charities in three cities (Istanbul, Izmir and Diyarbakir) earlier this summer. Both were kind enough to respond to my questions about how charities reacted to globalgiving and online fundraising in general.

They reported regional differences in terms of organizational capacity and English language ability – not surprising and clearly serious deterrents for using globalgiving (and accessing other foreign funds). Yet they also had the impression that ‘Turkey is at the forefront in terms of using social media to engage donors and spread a message’. Having entered that ‘world’ through some programmes I am involved in, I can attest to the explosion of social movements via social media. However admirable it is, these movement are more so about raising consciousness, not money.

Another finding was that most charities expressed a lack of clarity and a degree of frustration about fundraising laws. ‘Public’ fundraising activities (collecting online donations, raising funds through portals, or any other public campaign) continue to require bureaucratically confusing and complicated procedures and permissions at the national level. And while receipt or foreign funds is no longer subject to permission, each donation must be filed with public officials before use. No easy feat if you’re collecting 10 USD at a time! While several years back, the Turkish government improved the charity law, there is still more to do to making giving easy and accessible.

In her post, Olga proposes that this is a ‘technical’ problem, and that we need to ‘decrease’ the asking price of donations. The factors that increase the asking price in Turkey include cumbersome policies/procedures, lack of centralized systems, donor services, fundraising skills and the burden of foreign language requirements – quite similar to most emerging market countries.

While it is not globalgiving’s mandate to decrease the ‘asking price’ per se, for charities in contexts like Turkey, perhaps they could help us both build capacity of charities to join their networks while also sharing their know-how to help build similar local mechanisms.

Note from the author: I would like to dedicate this piece to the memory of Olga Alexeeva whose vision and pursuit inspired me. May she rest in peace knowing that we are all continuing to help make her visions a reality.

Filiz Bikmen is a foundation professional, speaker and author based in Istanbul, Turkey. Currently is the director of programs and international relations at Sabancı Foundation and a regular contributor to Alliance Magazine.

Somalia Relief Fund

2011-08-11T00:13:00.000-04:00

As the crisis in the Horn of Africa deepens, we believe that it is our moral obligation to respond to this human crisis.

We have established the Somalia Relief Fund at TPF. 100% of your funds will go to UNICEF to support the funding gap of $120 million for its emergency operations in Somalia. Among the most urgent needs in the crisis response are therapeutic food for malnourished children, safe water for tankering in drought-stricken areas, bednets to prevent malaria, and family kits for people on the move – like the thousands of refugees who are crossing into Kenya from Somalia.

WHAT YOUR MONEY CAN BUY
$20 can provide 480 High Energy Protein Biscuits to provide children nutrition in the wake of a disaster.
$140 can provide a Basic Family Water Kit to provide clean drinking water to 10 families.
$256 can provide a School-in-a-box kit to set up a temporary school for 40 students during an emergency–containing a chalk board, notebooks, pencils, erasers, scissors and even multi-band radio.

To contribute to the Somalia Relief Fund online through TPF, click here.

You can also contribute to the Somalia Relief Fund by sending your check to:
Turkish Philanthropy Funds
Re: Somalia Relief Fund
216 East 45th Street, 7th Fl.
New York, New York 10017
Please make your checks payable to Turkish Philanthropy Funds and indicate “Somalia Relief” on the check. For additional information, please email info@tpfund.org.

If you would like to make a contribution from your Donor-Advised Fund with TPF, please call 646.530.8988.

Gender Equality as Smart Economics: Solving the Turkish Dilemma

2011-07-27T12:44:00.013-04:00

By Asli Gurkan

Robert B. Zoellick, the president of the World Bank, was in Turkey last week. During his four-day visit on July 19-22, Zoellick praised Turkey’s economic progress with caution. On top of his agenda was the need to increase female participation in the Turkish workforce. It wasn't a coincidence that Zoellick commended Turkey's remarkable economic performance and spoke of the growing gender-gap in Turkey concurrently. The Turkish case presents a dilemma: Despite Turkey's successes in macroeconomic stability and poverty-reduction; the participation of women in economic life is abysmal. Turkey was among the lowest scoring countries in the 2010 World Economic Forum Gender Equality Gap Report and scored 126th out of 134th in the UNDP Gender Inequality Index. What is more worrisome is that women's economic participation rates have been declining in the last decade. The latest figures stand at 25 percent, significantly lower than the OECD average.

Female workforce Participation Rates- Turkey vs. Organizations for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)

Source: "Turkey's Greatest Untapped Potential: Women": Turkish State Planning Organization and World Bank Presentation, 2009.

Why is women's labor force participation so low and declining? Two recent studies supported by the World Bank, “Turkey's Greatest Untapped Potential: Women” (2009) and the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK)’s “Women Employment in Turkey" (2010), give us helpful clues.

According to these studies, urbanization is a key contributor. Women, many of whom are unpaid agricultural laborers in rural areas stay home when they move into urban areas, citing reasons such as family pressures, security reasons, harsh working conditions, and low-wages. This is particularly the case for those with little or no education. While young men, even in the rural areas, are transitioning from agricultural jobs into better-paid jobs in the manufacturing and services sectors, women are staying home. A top reason cited by women is the lack of affordable childcare. According to the TUBITAK study women in Istanbul have to pay “between 500 and 600 Turkish Lira per month (about $350-400) just for childcare if they decided to work and more for other extra costs of additional household help."

Among other contributing reasons to staying home, women list "harassment" and "gossiping." In the interviews, they said "men often make sexual gestures towards women employees and that women do not know how to protect themselves against sexual harassment." Rumors are also considered a concern even for educated women. TUBITAK study quotes a female engineer who, despite being extremely qualified for a particular job, was not hired. Apparently, the employer said: "I am looking for someone who can have business trips with me. But how could I go with a female worker? It can lead to rumors."

The new initiative, Women Gender Equality Certificate, that Zoellick announced jointly with Turkey's prominent women's organization, KAGIDER, is a highly encouraging step to overcome some of these challenges. The initiative attempts to bring new rules and regulations to fight against gender discrimination on promotion, training, and working conditions. There are other notable initiatives such as subsidizing employers’ social security contributions for newly hired women for up to five years. Yet, women's stories indicate that focusing solely on employers and structural reforms is only half of the problem. Their voices point to deeper socio-cultural issues of a society that is still struggling to balance conservative values with realities of a global era and internalize men-women co-existence in the workforce.

Whatever one's beliefs and values may be when it comes to equality in the workforce, Turkey cannot afford excluding the women. The reason is simple. As Diego Angel-Urdinola, the lead author of the World Bank study so succinctly explains: “In the same way that you wouldn’t play football without a full team, countries can’t compete globally if they don’t use the full potential of all their citizens.”

Asli Gurkan is a Social Development Specialist at the World Bank based in Washington-DC.

Turkish Athletes’ Special Revolution through the Sports

2011-07-13T10:43:00.008-04:00

By Pelin Cebi

Don’t we all want to live in a society where equal opportunities are based on tolerance, social inclusion and acceptance regardless of ethnicity, gender, religion, and abilities? I know that I do. I want to live in a community where each person’s uniqueness is appreciated and nurtured. That’s why I paid attention to the 13^th Special Olympics World Summer Games which took place between June 25-July 4 in Athens. World Games are one the most influential events that promote social inclusion and acceptance for people with intellectual disabilities.

This year’s games celebrated the lives of more than 7,000 special athletes from nearly 180 countries. Turkey was one of the 180 countries and participated with 105 athletes. Team Turkey competed in seven different disciplines. The enthusiasm of these brave athletes captured the hearts and minds of the many and sent a powerful message to the world, “everybody can win”. There are just over 14,000 athletes in Special Olympics in Turkey receiving training on Alpine Skiing, Aquatics, Basketball, Football, Gymnastics, Powerlifting, Table Tennis and Volleyball.

“Special Olympics Turkey relies mostly on private philanthropic funding” explains Maureen Rabbitt, the Director of Communications at Special Olympics who is responsible for the Europe and Eurasia regions. Since its inception, Dilek Sabanci, an outspoken supporter and an inspiration to people with intellectual disabilities in Turkey, has been at the heart of the movement. 30 percent of Special Olympics Turkey’s funding comes from commercial sponsors.

Melih Gurel, the National Director of Special Olympics in Turkey, describes the most prevailing challenge in Turkey to be the lack of awareness and understanding from parents on the potential of training for their children. “Special Olympics Turkey finds it difficult to encourage athletes to leave their homes or schools to train due to resistance by their parents. This is an educational and public awareness matter that Special Olympics Turkey is working to address.”

Wilfried Lemke, the United Nations Special Advisor on Sport for Development and Peace, spoke at this year’s opening ceremonies and also made a point on

awareness. “Special Olympics transforms communities from closed to open ones, from intolerant to accepting ones and by using sport to accomplish this, has come to represent the good, the power and the true spirit of sport.” True, the challenge is due to the indifference and prejudiced attitude towards the intellectually disabled. Living standards of people with disabilities and quality of services offered are also important indicators of a country’s health, education and economic development.

In recent years, Turkey has made progress in acceptance and inclusion of people with intellectual disabilities thanks to a few organizations like Special Olympics Turkey, the Human Rights in Mental Health Initiative (RUSIHAK), and one of TPF’s grantees, Tohum Autism Foundation and many more. Efforts of such organizations reflect a growing movement towards the inclusion of the intellectually disabled into society. There are many ways in which you can help to promote the advancement of people with intellectual disabilities. You can volunteer as a coach or run events, and write and share stories of your experiences.

"The Key is Opportunity," as Special Olympics so simply puts it. These and other organizations provide the keys for change to athletes and supporters alike. Will you take the opportunity to make a difference?

Pelin Cebi is a former Associate Director for Development for the New York City Region of Special Olympics. Ms. Cebi currently lives in San Francisco and works as a training program specialist in a leading financial institution.

PHOTOS
From Top:
Turkish Athletes during the opening ceremony;
Muhtar Kent, Chairman of The Coca-Cola Company, marched with Special Olympics Turkey in the Parade of Athletes
Credit: Will Schermerhorn

UN Report Praises Turkey’s Women Movement

2011-07-07T14:54:00.004-04:00

Posted by Ayca Ariyoruk

Despite remarkable legal advances women made around the world in their quest to attain equal opportunities – there is a wide gap in implementation and delivery of justice matters. This is the message of Progress of the World’s Women 2011-2011; In Pursuit of Justice, the first global report on women released yesterday by UN Women. The new supra-departmental agency UN Women was founded in 2010 with the merger of four separate UN entities working on the advancement of women.

“Justice is the foundation of gender equality” said Michelle Bachelet, the undersecretary-general of UN Women and formerly Chile’s first female president, at a press conference yesterday. That why the UN Women has chosen legal rights as the theme for the inaugural report.

According to the report, 125 countries have outlawed domestic violence. Turkey is one of them. Turkey changed penal and civil codes in 2004 and 2005 to increase sentences for honor killers. The problem remains in implementation and the delivery of justice. “Two thirds of countries have laws against domestic violence but legislation is only the first step…In Muslim countries, you have the laws but there is a gap in implementation” argues Bachelet.

The report puts forward proven and achievable recommendations that work. For instance, placing women in front line of law enforcement helps. The study observed increased reporting on sexual violence in countries where more women serve in the police.

Bachelet praises women activists who made it clear that “culture and religion cannot be used as an excuse to justify gender discrimination and injustice. Injustice is not inevitable or natural. It is not a basis for any culture or religion and we have the power to change it.”

In a case study on Turkey, UN Women recognizes Turkey’s women movement that launched “a bold campaign” and “culminated in a new penal code in 2004, which included the criminalization of marital rape and sexual harassment in the workplace, the revision of all articles discriminating between single and married women and the strengthening of provisions on sexual abuse of children.”

Yes She Can! TPF Joins Public-Private Partnership

2011-06-20T12:54:00.011-04:00

By Ayca Ariyoruk

Can you imagine, at the age of 17, packing a back-pack for your wedding instead of your math class? That is not too far from reality for hundreds and thousands of girls, who are out of school in Turkey. Despite joining the Group of 20, the exclusive club of most powerful economies, Turkey ranks at 126, out of 134 on gender gap according to the World Economic Forum Report. Turkey is behind Iran (123) and Bangladesh (82). The vast majority of the worst-scoring countries are Muslim.

In order to help change this little-known unfortunate reality, Turkish Philanthropy Funds (TPF) joined forces with a group of public and private partners that have answered a call from President Obama for a new beginning between the United States and Muslim communities. Following President Obama’s call famous Cairo Speech on June of 2009, notable organizations and companies such as Morgan Stanley, Cisco, Exxon Mobile, Intel, The Coca-Cola Company, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Case Foundation and Brown University have volunteered resources of money and talent to spearhead a new initiative properly entitled Partners for a New Beginning. So did TPF.

TPF’ s “Yes She Can!” will work with two local partners, Turkcell, the Turkish telecommunications giant and Cagdas Yasami Destekleme Dernegi (Association for the Support of the Contemporary Living), a not-for-profit dedicated to increasing the schooling of girls in Turkey. Together they will launch a mentorship program that will connect Turkish girls between the ages of 12-21 to professional women in the United States. The immediate purpose is to increase college enrollment that will in the long-term result with more women in the workforce, gradually improving gender equality in Turkey. Turkcell and TPF will also fund scholarships.

Yes She Can will engage at least 100 girls in its first year, and increase that number by 10 percent in the each following year, eventually reducing the number of girls not attending primary school down to half million by 2020, and to 300,000 by 2025.

Yes She Can is not the only public and private partnership in Turkey. For instance, Cisco’s SPARK for Women will provide economic opportunities to women In Turkey through information technology education and training. 120 women in six cities will become trainers and will each train additional 20 women, impacting 2,400 women in total. IBM will invest in $1.2 million and send its highest performer business and IT consultants to provide free consulting to local clients in Istanbul, Jakarta and Cairo.

Such public and private ventures are gaining popularity over traditional forms of foreign-aid. Simply increasing aid to the poor can do more harm than good, by creating dependency, feeding corruption and poor governance. The poor do not need charity but sound investments that spur economic growth and opportunities, create jobs and raise standard of living. That’s why the US is increasingly turning towards strategic partnerships with the private and public sector.

If you are one of the many Americans wondering why you should be concerned about the poor elsewhere in face of such economic hardship at home, think about the countless benefits to the increasingly connected global-economy. The women who will benefit from PNB’s education and training programs will in the long run help improve economic standards in Turkey. So by participating, you are not only being a do-gooder, but also making an investment for your own future in some little way.

Share with us your thoughts on public-private partnerships at ayca@tpfund.org. Would you like to mentor a girl in Turkey? For more information on how you can participate in Yes She Can, contact us at yesshecan@tpfund.org.

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Hillary’s Smart Power and a "Golden Age for Philanthropy in Turkey"

2011-06-07T10:35:00.012-04:00

By Ayca Ariyoruk

Hillary Clinton wants to put diversity into work. That’s why in May, she brought together hundreds of first, second-generation Americans or Americans-to-be at the Secretary’s Global Diaspora Forum in Washington DC. If you are, like me, thinking, “We don’t want anything to do with the place we come from. They will never resolve their differences, and it is a waste of our time. We can’t possibly make any contribution,” as Clinton put in her own words, read on because Madame Secretary respectfully disagrees with you. She may convince you otherwise. She convinced me.

Currently, more than 60 million Americans are first or second generation Diasporas in America. America ranks first among countries with the largest number of international migrants, not a surprising fact given almost all Americans have immigrant roots further back. 60 million is a lot of people, makes up a population comparable to that of a mid-size country. A “potential” as Secretary Clinton calls it and a key tool in America’s national strategy of employing smart-power. Harvard Professor Joseph Nye defines smart power as the strategic use and choice of hard power –military, economic means or soft power –culture, values, policies and institutions, for a winning strategy. In other words knowing which power to employ and when.

“Using people-to-people exchange is the core of smart power” Clinton says, the Peace Corps, US Agency for International Development, Overseas Private Investment Corporation and the State Department “all rolled into one.”

She is not kidding. $46 billion is the amount of remittances sent by US Diaspora in 2010, according to the State Department, almost twice the $28.7 billion US Official Development Assistant in 2009. The term ‘remittances’ generally refers to transfers in cash or kind from a migrant to household resident, in the country of origin, such as a worker’s remittance.

Yet it is not just about money and how much Diaspora sends back. The hearts and minds engaged for the good of the people in the homeland, also known as the Diaspora Philanthropy, counts more. Let’s not forget, philanthropy is different from charity. Philanthropy refers to seeking out the root causes of problems and solving them. It is transformational giving aimed at bringing about social change and influencing policy. Now-a-days, you can’t win wars only through military means, nor can you build peace-loving democracies with healthy economies solely on foreign aid. That’s where Philantrophy, or smart-charity as I would like to call it, comes in.

For instance, Turkish Philanthropy Funds (TPF) offers leadership, skills and networks to increase access to education in Turkey and to empower women in exercising economic control over their lives. TPF does that by connecting members of the Turkish-American Diaspora community to innovative causes in Turkey. More than your money (simple in-cash donations are always welcome), TPF needs your ideas and your skills. As the only speaker from the Turkish-American community at Secretary’s Diaspora forum, Ozlenen Eser Kalav, TPF’s president explains TPF’s unique model on giving: “TPF does not approach Diaspora philanthropy as a matter of quantity. We pay special attention to donors’ involvement…”

The Turkish-American community is a predominantly immigrant community. Only 25 percent of the Turkish-Americans living in the United States are US-born. Bonds to Turkey still fresh, we are conscious of our ethnic ties. Most of us came to the US from middle-income families to advance in our educations, not out of desperation. We reached a point where we can think about giving back to larger communities in Turkey, having an impact beyond the small family unit. That’s why since its inception in 2007, TPF was able to grant over $10.4 million to Turkish and US non-profits. Over 1,200 students, women, children and their families have benefited from TPF funded programs.

Turkey’s growing economy makes it a perfect place to invest in new ideas and networks, the bread and butter of philanthropy. The economy is ripe and can produce wealth and nurture entrepreneurship, innovation, paving a path for which Michael Green describes as the “golden age of philanthropy” in Turkey. He has a point. A decade of robust growth placed Turkey among the top 20 economies of the world. Yet, like many other countries, Turkey is unevenly affected by the forces of globalization which is for the most part responsible for this notable growth. While some populations in the society are moving ahead and are placed above the curve, some are falling behind considerably.

If you are now a new convert, like me, who thinks making a difference in Turkey is possible, write to us, about your ideas, your passion, and together we will find ways to be smart about it.

Ayca@tpfund.org.

Ayca Ariyoruk joined Turkish Philanthropy Funds as Director of Communications and Outreach in May of 2011. She will be a regular contributor to TPFundBlog bringing you stories on philanthropy and global development.

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TPF Founders Receive Global Citizenship Award from Turkish American Business Forum

2011-05-25T11:53:00.004-04:00

Turkish Philanthropy Funds Founding CEO and President Ozlenen Eser Kalav and Founding Chairman Haldun Tashman were honored with the Global Citizenship Award at the 9th Annual Turkish American Business Forum Gala on May 19, 2011.

The Global Citizenship Award recognizes individuals for their global perspective, commitment and contributions to education and philanthropy. Haldun Tashman and Ozlenen Kalav were the first recipients of this special award and hope to set an example for future generation of Turkish-Americans to give back to their community.

Hamdi Ulukaya, Jan Nahum, Lawrence M. Kaye, and Cenk Uygur were also honored by the Turkish American Business Forum at the Gala this year.

TPF Honored by H.E. Ambassador Namik Tan

2011-05-19T13:36:00.010-04:00

Turkish Philanthropy Funds was honored for its humanitarian efforts at a reception hosted by H.E. Ambassador Namik Tan, Turkish Ambassador to the U.S. and his wife at the Turkish Embassy Residence in Washington D.C. on May 16, 2011. The Ambassador and his wife hosted prominent members of the Turkish-American community, leaders from the nonprofit circle and government officials to celebrate TPF's efforts in advancing community development in Turkey.

TPF Founding Chairman, Haldun Tashman spoke briefly about TPF's journey since its inception in 2007 and stressed the importance of building a community through joint efforts.

More Pictures.

Landmines Are Not an Issue of Security but Rather an Issue of Human Rights

2011-04-25T10:26:00.010-04:00

By Ozlem Ozturk

Toplumsal Duyarlilik Dernegi (Association for Social Awareness)

Children don’t play soccer or tag in southeastern Turkey. They wish they did. But the several thousands of landmines that are scattered across over 3,000 villages won’t allow them. According to the Turkish-based Human Rights Association, and Association for Social Awareness (ASA), the regions of Mardin, Sirnak, Hakkari, Siirt, Diyarbakir, Bitlis, Batman, Van and Bingol are especially overrun with landmines.

Landmines were planted as a result of an intense conflict in Turkey’s southeast over the past several decades. Both Turkish government forces and opposition rebels are guilty of planting the deadly weapons. Landmine Monitor estimates that over 930,00 mines were planted between 1957 and 1998.

Though the number of landmines in Turkey is grossly high, there is little information about them. There are no studies, research or evaluation about the risks of unexploded mines. Moreover, there are no laws on behalf of mine victims.

Since June 2008, as ASA, we have been fighting to eliminate landmines and raise awareness to protect the public. We are committed to making landmine awareness a human rights issue that the Turkish government needs to tackle. Toward that end, in 2006, we conducted a survey in Hakkari, collecting data about unexploded mines and information about those injured by mines. From 2006 to 2007 we rolled out a “Therapy and Prosthetics Project” that provided prosthetics to 65 landmine victims. It culminated in the publication of a book entitled Geride Kalanlar.

These efforts have shed much needed light on the plight of those living in the southeast of Turkey, often under harsh conditions of poverty, gender inequality and poor education. Organizations such as Turkish Philanthropy Funds are critical in helping move our efforts forward.

One of those efforts has been the “Mine and Conflict Waste Education for Children” program. Piloted in Hakkari, this program aims to reduce the risk of harm that unexploded landmines can have on children. The project is currently run in public elementary schools where children between 7 and 15 learn about the dangers of landmines and other explosives. It’s touched 20,000 in Hakkari. Since the program started there have been no landmine accidents.

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Will Bill Gates and Warren Buffett visit Turkey?

2011-04-04T12:15:00.008-04:00

By Michael Green

Is giving America’s new big export to the world? Bill Gates and Warren Buffett certainly hope so. Last month they visited India on their second foreign expedition, after a trip to China at the end of last year, to promote their ‘Giving Pledge’ – a commitment by billionaires to give away at least half of their wealth. The idea has certainly taken off back home, where one in ten of America’s super-rich have signed on the dotted line. Could Turkey be next?

Critics have been quick to point out that the ‘Giving Pledge’ tours have not been a rip-roaring success. In China Buffett and Gates got a pretty indifferent response, in public at least, and none of India’s economic winners has yet signed on. This is no surprise say some who think that philanthropy is a curiously American habit that is inappropriate in countries with different cultures and social models.

Yet philanthropy is not an alien concept outside America. In India in particular there is a rich tradition of giving, as Gates acknowledged on his visit, that goes back centuries and lives on today through the philanthropy of people like Ratan Tata, the head of the giant Tata industrial group.

Indeed, rather than being a call to action to overseas billionaires, the Giving Pledge tour is better understood as an acknowledgement of a trend that is already underway. In both India and China the fundamentals are in place for a boom in giving – a new generation of entrepreneurial wealth-creators and countries with plenty of tough challenges ahead as they try to turn soaring economic growth into sustainable and equitable development for their societies.

America was already exporting the idea of high-impact philanthropy long before Gates and Buffett set off on their tour – through successful Chinese and Indian Americans giving back to their countries of origin. Take Vinod Khosla for example. Born and raised in India, he earned his fortune in venture capital in California and is now applying his business skills to his giving back in his home country through a series of investments in ‘social’ businesses like the microcredit provider SKS.

Such diaspora philanthropy is a growing trend in its own right. Migrants have always been generous in supporting their families and communities at home – according to the World Bank global remittance flows are now far greater than official aid from the governments of rich countries. But it’s not just about the cash. From Haiti to India, diaspora philanthropists are getting increasingly well organised and focused on making sure that their giving is more than expression of concern but a real force for change.

The Turkish economy is certainly producing the entrepreneurial wealth to fuel a golden age of philanthropy. Maybe, with the help and leadership of the diaspora, Turkey might soon merit a visit from Messrs Buffett and Gates.

Michael Green is the co-author, with Matthew Bishop, of Philanthrocapitalism: how giving can save the world

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Turkish Trains and the Lessons for Philanthropy

2011-03-22T11:04:00.004-04:00

By Stephen Kinzer

I am writing this while speeding across the verdant Anatolian plain on Turkey's first high-speed train, which began operating two years ago. The Spanish-made cars are sleek outside and immaculate inside. Seats are comfortable, the ride is smooth, and attendants have just served tea and snacks.

This project reflects what works well in powerful emerging-market countries like Turkey—and also what works less well. It holds lessons for philanthropists as well as for entrepreneurs.

The train line was built by one of Turkey's most successful infrastructure companies, the Alarko Contracting Group, which has a global reputation for excellence in building large infrastructure projects. Among its current ones are an airport in Kiev, light rail systems in the Turkish cities of Samsun and Adana, and a water purification and distribution system in Astana, the new Kazakh capital.

Alarko was built largely by a visionary entrepreneur, Ishak Alaton. In the 1940s his family, like many Jewish families in Turkey, was effectively bankrupted by a one-time “wealth tax” that fell disproportionately on non-Muslims. The young Ishak Alaton was undaunted. He chose an equally ambitious partner and, starting from scratch, built his company. For decades he has also worked to promote civil society and human rights in his homeland.

Turkey spent much of its national life isolated from the global economy. That began to change in the 1980s, but the economy remained volatile and subject to sudden crises. Then, in 2002, Turks elected a single-party government that has made Turkey's economy one of the world's most vibrant. Last year it grew by an astonishing 11 percent, second only to China.

One of the government's priority projects was building a high-speed rail line from the capital, Ankara, to the largest city, Istanbul. Working with a Spanish partner, Alarko completed the first leg, from Ankara to the city of Eskisehir, in two and a half years.

This is not an ultra-high-speed “bullet train,” but a conventional fast one like the Acela, which serves the Boston-New York-Washington corridor. The 125-mile trip from Ankara to Eskisehir takes 87 minutes. A trip of about the same distance, from New York to New London, Connecticut, aboard the Acela, which is the fastest train in the US, takes 135 minutes.

All of this is good reason for Turks to celebrate, but also to worry. The new train line reaches only to Eskisehir, and progress toward finishing the route to Istanbul is slow. Neither Alarko or another comparably qualified company has been given the contract to complete it. No official reason has been given, but in Turkish business circles, many say that whoever wins the contract is being expected to make “special arrangements” with government agencies or officials. They may range from bribes to shady side deals benefiting favored subcontractors. Alarko is known for its resistance to such “arrangements.”

When the contract for the first leg of this train line was awarded, Turkey's one-party government was reveling in its reputation for vigor and honesty. In recent years, that reputation has begun to fade. Entrepreneurship works only in a clean political environment. So does philanthropy. Both require cooperation with government, but when that cooperation becomes tinged with corruption, nations and individuals lose.

Stephen Kinzer is an award-winning foreign correspondent who has covered more than 50 countries on five continents. Kinzer spent more than 20 years working for the New York Times, most of it as a foreign correspondent in several countries including Nicaragua Germany and Turkey. He is the author of several bestselling books including Crescent & Star:Turkey between Two Worlds and Reset: Iran, Turkey and America's Future.

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The Marmara-Manhattan supports TPF's Japan Earthquake Relief Fund

2011-03-18T14:03:00.002-04:00

The Marmara-Manhattan supports TPF's "Japan Earthquake Relief Fund" with a corporate gift and donating $2 for every booking till the end of March 2011.

We thank them for their generosity and leadership.

To learn about the "Japan Earthquake Relief Fund," visit here.

TPF's 2nd Annual Report

2011-03-17T14:03:00.003-04:00

It is our pleasure to share our second Annual Report, covering the period July 1, 2009 - June 30, 2010.

Your passion and purpose has propelled TPF from $1.4million in 2008 to $3.8 million in 2009 to a $12 million charitable organization this year.

We look forward to helping you make 2011 your most rewarding giving year to date!

Japan Earthquake Relief Fund

2011-03-14T12:00:00.000-04:00

Turkish Philanthropy Funds extends its heartfelt sympathy and deepest condolences to the people of Japan.

To assist our friends at Japan Society, TPF has created a Japan Earthquake Relief Fund. 100 % of your contributions will go to organizations that directly help victims recover from the devastating effects of the earthquake and tsunamis that struck Japan on March 11, 2011 through Japan Society.

To contribute to the Japan Earthquake Relief Fund online through TPF, click here.

You can also contribute to the Japan Earthquake Relief Fund by sending your check to:

Turkish Philanthropy Funds
Re: Japan Earthquake Relief Fund
216 East 45th Street, 7th Fl.
New York, New York 10017

Please make your checks payable to Turkish Philanthropy Funds and indicate “Japan Earthquake” on the check. For additional information, please email info@tpfund.org.

If you have a Donor-Advised Fund with TPF, please call 646.530.8988.

Turkish Life, Turkish Women

2011-03-08T10:38:00.002-05:00

By Elmira Bayrasli

Turkish women, Raquel Fernandez, professor of economics at NYU, says, are among the most satisfied with their roles as housewives compared to other women around the world. She explains this through culture and why it matters to economic development, which has been exploding in Turkey over the past several years. So where are the women?

So much has been written about Turkish women and the need to support their empowerment. Turkish Philanthropy Funds is at the forefront leading this effort through its programs dedicated to gender equality and education. I wrote about my favorite program, spearheaded by the Mother Child Education Foundation (ACEV) a few months back.

But more needs to be done beyond education to fully integrate women into all aspects of Turkish life. Turkish women are, as the country’s founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk recognized, vital to country’s dynamism and success. No surprise he ensured that Turkey’s women were granted the right to vote and equal access to education. On the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day, it’s important to recognize hail the numerous bold efforts to help Turkish women realize their enormous potential.

• Newsweek and Daily Beast chief Tina Brown has hailed Pinar Ilkkaracan one of 150 women who “shake the world.” Ilkkaracan will participate in the conference named just that this week for her work on women’s human rights. She heads two NGO’s, Women for Women’s Human Rights – New Ways and The Coalition for Sexual and Bodily Rights in Muslim Societies. Both have been key in advocating for increased women’s rights.

• When a 16-year old girl was found last year to have been buried alive by her relatives for “talking to boys,” I immediately thought of Mor Cati. Known as “purple roof” in English, Mor Cati was born out of a “resistance movement” against violence against women in 1987. It has become one of the most important organizations providing refuge for abused women through shelters and a hotline.

• A hotline into the brutal world of war is what journalist Nadire Mater has provided us with her book, Voices from the Front. It’s an account of Turkish soldiers in the trenches, fighting Kurdish separatists. It brings us first-hand accounts of the fears these young men hold and faulty policies their superiors advance. It is the hallmark of Mater’s tireless work in human rights and her insistence of bring it to light through human stories.

• Stories are what Anastasia Ashman, Rose Deniz and Tara Agacayak have been bringing to Turkey and the worldwide community of “hybrid ambassadors.” Inspired by Ashman’s wonderful book Expat Harem, these writers, artists and entrepreneurs are translating life in Turkey, for themselves as well as for women all over the world who grapple with fitting in.

• And finally a woman bringing Turkey to the world: Melek Pulatkonak founded Turkish Women's International Network with the goal of connecting professional women and friends of Turkey to leverage their collective power for those Turkish women who aspire to join them. It's a badly needed platform that I'm proud to be a part of.

Here are a few. We’d love your suggestions for more. Please participate in the conversation.

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An Inspiring Philanthropist, Morris Schinasi

2011-02-25T13:48:00.002-05:00

Excerpted from Turk of America Magazine

By Naim Güleryüz / Researcher-Writer
Mrs. Laurette Schinasi came to Turkey in 1930 to meet with Department of Health officials in order to present a petition to found a children’s hospital in Manisa in line with the last will and testament of her husband, Morris Schinasi; he had died three years previously in the USA. Construction began immediately, following approval by the Department, and the then International Moris Şinasi Hospital was commissioned in 1933; it still serves the public today, as the Moris Şinasi Children’s Hospital.
Morris was born in 1855 in Manisa to a relatively poor Sephardic family as one of four children; he had two brothers (Solomon, also known as Shlomo, and Yaakov) and a sister (Sultana.) Sephardic Jews, Spanish and Portuguese Jews, opted to leave their homeland in 1492 and thereafter rather than submit to forced conversion to Catholicism. The majority of the Sephardim settled in Ottoman lands following an invitation by Sultan Bayezid II. Of the 20,000 Jews still living in Turkey, some 96% are Sephardic.
Morris was forced to leave school and begin work when he was young. Falling ill at the age of 14, Morris was treated in hospital and soon appreciated the value of education. In 1870, at the age of 15 and with all he had to his name-- two Mecidiye (Imperial gold coins)--he sailed to Egypt in search of new opportunities and began to work for a Greek tobacco merchant named Garofollo in Alexandria. Garofollo traded in tobacco as well as in the manufacture of cigarettes. He liked this intelligent, diligent, ambitious and driven young man and took him under his wing.

MORRIS’S DREAM
The year was 1890. Morris was 35 and his big dreams carried him far. Borrowing US$25,000 from his beloved boss Garofollo, he immigrated to the USA in 1892 and exhibited the cigarette-rolling machine he had designed himself at the Chicago Fair. Until then, every single cigarette had been hand-rolled, paper and tobacco being purchased separately; this new machine created a good deal of interest. He repaid the US$25,000 loan and sent out for his brother Solomon (Shlomo.) Once Shlomo had arrived in New York, they established the “Schinasi Brothers Company” on Broadway and 120th Street.
According to author Rıfat N. Bali, writer of ‘Moses’ Children, Republican Citizens’, their Egyptian Prettiest brand Turkish cigarettes, rolled with Turkish tobacco, soon became very popular. True to his origins and his own poor childhood, Morris invited Turkish workers, in particular from Manisa, to work in his factory. At one point there were some 200 Manisa Jews working there.

Morris lived as a bachelor until the age of 48; it was during a business visit to Salonica that he met the granddaughter of a colleague, Joseph Ben Rubi. He married the 16-year-old Laurette in 1903. They had three daughters (Victoria, Juliette and Altina).

ABDULHAMID II HONOURED
The New York Times reported on 7 March 1916, Schinasi Brothers sold their two million-dollar cigarette factories and all commercial rights to the business to the Tobacco Products Corporation in 1916 in exchange for three and a half million dollars and retired. Morris’s son Leon was elected to the board of the new company; he left this position in July 1918 and joined the Standard Commercial Tobacco Company as Vice-President and General Manager.
Abdülhamid II honoured Morris with a Mecidiye of the Fourth Order in 1906 for his services to the Turkish economy by importing Turkish tobacco to the USA and his son Leon (who had a soft spot for horses) was presented with a pure Arab stallion from the Ottoman stud line. The presentation was carried out by HE Mehmet Ali Bey, the Ottoman Ambassador to Washington, in July 1908.

The Schinasi brothers of Manisa, who were members of the Anatolian Sephardim Union and Peace Society as well as the Shearith Israel Synagogue in New York, joined many other institutions in the city to help other Sephardim in need. One of the leading such institutions, The Federation of Oriental Jews, elected Morris Schinasi Honorary President on the 7th of June 1914 at a meeting attended by over one thousand Sephardim at the school at 91 Forsyth Street, New York.

Solomon (Shlomo) died on Saturday, the 4th of October, 1919, following a two-week coronary illness, at his Villa Julia on Riverside and 89th Avenue. This mansion, which had originally been purchased from Isaac L. Rice, currently houses the Yeshiva Ketana Jewish school and is owned by a a law professor at Columbia University.

Morris died in September 1929 at the age of 74; in his will, he had designated a large portion of his wealth, well over five million dollars, to charity. A one-million-dollar fund was entrusted to the Chemical Bank and Trust Co. of New York for the express purpose of founding a hospital in Manisa, the town of his birth.

Morris never forgot his home country of Turkey; many of the rooms in the marble French Renaissance mansion he commissioned in 1909 (the architect was the famous William B. Tuthill, who had previously designed Carnegie Hall) at Number 351 Riverside Drive, 107th Avenue, were done in a Turkish style. The bathroom was set out like a Turkish bath with washbasins typical of that layout. This building is currently listed as a historical building and in 1979 was sold to Hans Smit, a law professor at Columbia University.
The surname Schinasi is thought to be a version of the popular Jewish surname Ashkenazi; yet Morris’s daughter Altina was unable to confirm this point during our interview. Altina was born on the 4th of August 1907; during her career as a shopwindow decorator, the Harlequin spectacles she had designed in the 1930s had proved highly popular. Altina had published her memoirs in “The Road I Have Travelled” (Apodaca Hill Press, New Mexico, 1995) and died in her home in Santa Fe on Thursday the August 12, 1999.

This, in short, is the life story of little Morris, who was cured of his illness at a hospital and who, when he became a successful businessman far from his homeland, never forgot his origins, bestowing a valuable institution for the aid of the less fortunate. May his story inspire us all.

MORİS ŞİNASİ CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL
Laurette Schinasi and Huntington Turner, a manager at Chemical Bank, travelled to Turkey and met the then Secretary of Health Dr. Refik Saydam and high-ranking officials on the 27th of April 1930. Long negotiations resulted in an accord on land allotment, construction and operation as well as the use of the fund. $200,000 of the fund was set aside for construction and equipment while the remaining $800,000 was deposited in Ziraat Bank, with interest to be paid to the hospital annually. The equipment and consumables for the hospital were imported on the basis of a special duty waiver as per Bill Number 1907, dated the 28th of December 1931.

The hospital was set in the midst of a seven-acre garden and equipped with state-of-the-art equipment and instruments. The architect was W. Stuart Thompson and construction began on the 1st of June 1932. Open prison inmates worked on the site; construction finished in a short time and the hospital was inaugurated on the 15th of August 1933 at a ceremony attended by the Governor of Manisa, Lütfü Kırdar. The hospital began to accept patients officially on the 1st of October 1933. Serving as a general hospital until 1968, it joined the Department of Health in that year and was recommissioned as a Children’s Hospital.

When it was first opened, the hospital grew its own vegetables in its garden and obtained eggs from its own chickens; the Head’s official vehicle was a horse-drawn carriage and the ambulance was a horse-cart. The horse was until recently listed as capital equipment and only dropped off the list when it died.
In time, the hospital’s own water source was handed over to the military and the small woods in the garden made way for concrete buildings; yet it still maintains its original 1930s look as well as the majority of its original infrastructure, such as the heating and air conditioning systems. This nostalgic aspect is reinforced by such details as the historic elevator that still works on a mechanical pulley system.

Thanks to the financial assistance provided by the original fund and additional State help, the buildings, now used as Health Directorate and School of Medicine, have been restored, rebuilt as needed and equipped with the latest technology. The boiler room was the most recent restoration and now serves as a modern laboratory. Upper floor rooms that were unused have been renovated and now serve as a private patients’ wing. The Celal Bayar University School of Medicine was opened on the 1st of March 1994 and the Moris Şinasi Hospital was taken over by a 23rd of April 1994 protocol from the Department of Health. The annex, the construction of which was finished in 1995, was added to the compound.

The Moris Şinasi Children’s Hospital, led by a selfless health team, serves the children in the area; it is one of seven children’s hospitals in the country. In-patients numbered 2,879 in 1999 and 2,032 between January and August 2000. Out-patients numbered 34,313. Occupancy rates were 54.6% in 1999 and 59.5% in the first eight months of 2000. Some 239 surgical procedures were carried out in eight months, eight of which were major operations. During the same time period, some 4,609 X-rays were taken.

The fund has been successfully managed by Chase Bank, as it’s now called; officials pay a visit to the hospital every other year and hand over the annual income. In addition, a Moris Şinasi State Children’s Hospital Development Society has been founded to support the hospital.

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The Beri(1) Road To Development:The Problems Of Rural Women In Turkey

2011-02-09T11:11:00.005-05:00

Posted by Nurcan Baysal, Hüsnü M. Özyeğin Vakfı

“Here, local women walk up to highlands to milk their animals everyday, from June to September. We start out at around 10 in the morning and we reach our animals at around 1 pm. Milking takes half an hour. Then we walk back, each of us with a load of 10 to 25 liters of milk on our backs. Back home, we get busy again with childcare, boiling the milk, preparing dinner etc. This lasts until 5 pm. After that, we again spend 2.5 hours walking to “beri”, which means the beri takes 5 hours each day… You talk about ‘rural development’. I don’t quite get what it means, but it would be good for us, women, if you could improve the road to “beri”. The road now is too stony, our feet get hurt and it is too tiresome. It will make our lives easier if this road were to be improved. I wish there was a tractor to take us to “beri” and bring back.” (Female, age 28, Duzcealan Village, married with 2 children)(2)

Duzcealan village is in Southeastern Turkey, considered one of the poorest parts of the country. There, 56% of the women are illiterate, only 27% of the village’s children continue to middle school and there has been massive emigration.
Since 2008, the Özyeğin Foundation has been implementing an integrated rural development program in Tatvan, Bitlis consisting of seven villages. Duzcealan is one of those villages. Called the Kavar Basin Rural Development Project, the project aims to restart the region’s economy by increasing agricultural and livestock production. It’s doing so by working specifically with women and children. That is an important factor.

The problems in this region reflect the problems Turkish women face throughout Turkey. Unfortunately because these women are in remote areas their problems often go unaddressed. That’s a big issue. Women make up 48.5% of the people employed in the Turkish agricultural sector (Male employment in the agricultural sector is 19.8%). Only 1.5% of women who work in agriculture are recorded officially as laborers, while 98.5 % are unrecorded labor working without pay or any social security in family lands. That these women make tremendous economic contributions but are not compensated or recognized is of great concern.

In Turkey, despite great emphasis on women’s rights, the challenges rural women face have been ignored. There are few programs focused on defending the rights of rural women and highlighting the problems they face as agricultural workers. That the government equates rural development with agricultural development and ignores the social aspect of the problem has resulted in little or no advancement for rural women. This makes the Özyeğin Foundation’s Kavar Basin Rural Development Project ever more meaningful.

Since starting work many different activities have been implemented for the social and economic empowerment of the Kavar villagers.

Fast initial steps have been taken to improve farming. More than 10,000 fruit trees have been distributed. Barns have been modernized to increase the efficiency in animal husbandry. Most importantly, training has been held for farmers to get them acquainted with different methods of production, sustaining natural resources, and farmers' cooperatives. These training have resulted in a joint cooperative with members from six villages to engage in milk production and sales. This was an especially worthy accomplishment as there were many conflicts amongst villages merely a year ago.

With 40% of Kavar farmers being women, special attention has gone into their empowerment. Kavar women have been provided training sessions on health, women rights, child-care, protection of environment, and animal health. Many have been enrolled in high school and literacy courses. An entrepreneurship project entitled “Women in the Kavar” has enabled them to produce flowers that are being marketed to neighboring towns.

The Özyeğin Foundation’s Kavar Basin Rural Development Project has also focused on ensuring female education. In every village, rural community centers and housing facilities for teachers have been built. The area’s young people have been supported with extra courses to get them ready for university exams. Those admitted have been awarded scholarships.

The Özyeğin model applied in the Kavar Basin is hoping to reverse migration to villages. Focusing on women has been an important first step.

(1) “Beri” a local word for highlands where animals are kept during summer months.
(2) Ozyegin Foundation, Field Research Report, Kavar, Bitlis, August 2008

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What is your story? What is your super power?

2011-01-18T14:31:00.003-05:00

Posted By Melek Pulatkonak

Just as everyone has a story, they also have a super power - however difficult it is to discover.

My story lies in my decision to launch the Turkish Women’s International Network (TurkishWIN). TurkishWIN is a global platform for women with cultural, family or professional ties to Turkey to invest, connect, empower and inspire each other.

I believe in the power that stories have to inspire. It is one of the reasons I am a fan of TED and TED talks. In just the span of 18-20 minutes, ideas are spread and superheroes are born. This is the effect TED speakers such as Elif Shafak and Karsu Sonmez have had.

But they are not the only ones with ideas and stories. Everyday I come across amazing Turkish women who inspire me. Women at the Turkish Philanthropy Funds, artists, amazing academics, business leaders and international students in New York. I want to share their inspiration with the world.

TurkishWIN, hopes to be a platform for these women, independent of geography, age and industry, to share ideas and tell their stories to emerging tribes and inspire others. You can watch some of the TurkishWIN talks online now.

I believe one person can make a difference. We all want to help someone with our networks, perhaps with as little as an email introduction. Yet, there is limited matchmaking mechanism to connect the dots.

At TurkishWIN, we aspire to become the platform for women to make a difference for others and build a bridge between the women in the Diaspora and Turkey who would like to collaborate.

Launched in November 2010 in New York, TurkishWIN’s talk series plans to expand TurkishWIN talks in Turkey and other cities. TurkishWIN initiatives in the works include a mentorship program, connecting a micro-lending organization targeting women in Turkey with a major online platform in the U.S. and a photo book/ online project, “A Day in the Life of the Turkish Woman,” the idea of our member Nilufer Durak Dogan.

Now you have heard my story. What is my super power? It is my unwavering belief in the strength and generosity of the Turkish woman.

I invite all amazing Turkish (Turkiyeli) women who have great stories to tell and would like to invest in the future of the community: Join the TurkishWIN!

Melek Pulatkonak is the Founder & Curator of the Turkish Women’s International Network. She is also the President& COO of hakia, a New York based semantic search engine.

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Migrant Agricultural Worker's Access to Health Services

2010-12-08T12:41:00.002-05:00

Posted By Professor Dr. Zeynep Simsek

Harran University Medical School, Public Health Studies, Sanliurfa, Turkey

“Not seen or heard.” That’s what policymakers, political decision makers, civil and non-profit organizations, scientists and researchers say about seasonal migrant agricultural workers. At the heart of sustainable development, these migrant workers make up 450 million of the world’s 1.1 billion agricultural workforce. Unfortunately more than 60 percent live under the poverty level and 80 percent do not have social security.

They toil under harsh working conditions, such as chemical pesticides, dust, damage, cold and hot weather conditions, without access to proper healthcare. Combined with living in unhealthy living quarters, lack of access to clean water, and unsanitary hygienic conditions, many suffer from enormous health problems. Without question, seasonal migrant workers are one of society’s disadvantaged groups.

A new civil society organization in Turkey, Association of the Protection and Development of the Rights of Seasonal Agricultural Workers, created in November 2008, has been working to determine the main issues of concerns and to mobilize public institutions and other civil society organizations. The Turkish-based Sabanci Foundation Grant Program along with the UN Joint Program to Promote and Protect Human Rights of Women and Girls and the Turkish Philanthropy Funds (TPF) joined hands last year to assist this new organization in Sanliurfa, Turkey. A city located in southeastern Anatolia, Sanliurfa is home to a sizable migrant agricultural workforce. It is estimated that out of its 282,936 population, 44 percent (124,630) are migrant workers.

"Seasonal Migrant Workers Youth Program" which TPF supported through the Sabanci Foundation Grant Program of the UN Joint Program to Promote and Protect Human Rights of Women and Girls aimed to reduce social exclusion of seasonal migrant workers from the rest of society in Sanliurfa through the training of 25 peer leaders in a five-day workshop. The participants in the training were then asked to relay the information they have learned to at least 25 other peers in their communities so as to create a multiplier effect. During the training, the youth worked together to identify problems their families faced and learned about the solutions to address those problems, including their rights to basic health services, social services and educational services.

The organization takes on other projects that aim to contribute to the wellbeing of seasonal migrant workers such as "Seasonal Agriculture Worker's Women's and Girl's Access to Health Rights through Visiting Health Services." It’s a $10,000 project that is working with Sanliurfa’s municipality and its Directorate of Health to provide basic health services to migrant workers.

Among the services being delivered is a mobile visiting healthcare vehicle that includes a mini fridge to keep vaccines in, an examination table, gynecological facilities, and first aid kits. There are four of these vehicles deployed in the Sanliurfa municipality (comprised of 33 villages) with the support of the Sanliurfa city council. This service is not only addressing the migrant worker’s health needs, it is also transforming local government and community engagement on health issues in general.

Directly as a result of the scoping meetings conducted with the Sanliurfa health directorate and local city council, officials have collected vital information about the community’s health needs. Village headmen have been trained on how to obtain clean drinking water and how to reach health care services in the region.

On a larger scale, a budget for healthy living has been allocated and measures to prevent these issues in the future have been taken. Through these measures, Sanliurfa has become a role model for improving the lives of seasonal migrant agricultural workers. Through the municipality’s engagement, there have been solid steps toward better health care and living conditions. It is a wonderful example of community engagement on a critical social issue that previously no one could “see or hear” – but that now everyone can do something about.

Dr. Zeynep Simsek, a faculty member at the Harran University Medical School, specializes in Social Health Sciences. Her research and areas of expertise involves examining societal structures and their effects on the development of children and youth, specifically in Sanliurfa, a city in Eastern Turkey. Dr. Simsek has been working on projects that concern youth health and migratory workers' health and social rights issues.

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THANK YOU!

2010-11-16T14:49:00.001-05:00

In the spirit of Bayram and Thanksgiving, we have been reflecting on how grateful we are for your generosity and for your continued confidence in us this year.

We are thankful that with your participation and support TPF has been able to touch lives and make a positive, tangible difference in Turkey. Here are some new developments we would like to share with you:

- TPF's new grantee partner, Cagdas Yasami Destekleme Dernegi continues to contribute to the formation of a contemporary society in Turkey through education. Their signature programs, Baba Beni Okula Gonder and Kardelenler, and others, can now be supported through TPF.

- Another new grantee partner Türkiye Görme Özürlüleri Kitaplığı- TURGOK (Library for the Visually Disabled of Turkey) has launched a program to address the need for study books for the Central University Exam in Braille and audio format. They will provide not only study books but also hope for a better future for visually disabled youth of Turkey. This program is 40% funded by TPF.

- Anne Cocuk Eğitim Vakfi-ACEV (Mother and Child Education Foundation) launched its new program, The Rural Education Project, to develop and implement alternative education models in places where institutional and formal education is inadequate.

- Young Guru Academy has increased its creative libraries to 125 this year, getting one more step closer to their target of 5,000 libraries throughout Turkey. They have also launched the Remote Read-Think-Share Program to reach students they could not reach physically with the help of technology.

- Turk Kultur Vakfi/AFS (Turkish Cultural Foundation/AFS) has sent two disabled students on an exchange program to the United States, enriching the lives of the students as well as setting an example for other disabled youth in Turkey.

- TPF's first time grantee Mevsimlik Tarim Iscilerinin Haklarinin Korunmasi ve Gelistirilmesi Derneği (METIDER) provided additional training on civil rights, proposal writing and project coordination to the 25 seasonal migrant worker youth that originally attended " Seasonal Migrant Worker Youth Program." These 25 people now constitute the Youth Chapter of the organization, working to provide solutions for their community's needs.

Everything you do through TPF for these organizations makes a difference! Your involvement brings awareness to their issues, strengthens their missions, and most importantly, improves the lives of people. We hope these organizations inspire you just as much they inspire us.

Have a Happy Holiday Season!

Remembering Our Alma Maters…

2010-11-15T13:19:00.000-05:00

Posted by Karalyn Watson

Turkish universities are on the rise, and some of their degrees are becoming globally recognized and accepted. In a recent ranking by the Times Higher Education of London, two Turkish universities made it onto the Top 200 World Universities list—Bilkent University at #112 and Middle East Technical University at #183.

On the other hand, the top five schools in this ranking were U.S. schools. One reason for this is that U.S. higher education institutions are being lifted up and forward by grateful and loyal alumni. Compare universities and colleges in the United States—which receive huge support—to Turkish ones that do not, and it becomes clear why U.S. schools usually rank on top. It’s no coincidence that U.S. universities also have the highest alumni giving rates. In 2009, Harvard and Stanford each received over $600 million in alumni donations. The alumni and friends of these schools are investing back into their institutions, allowing them to build new facilities, conduct advanced research, hire qualified professors, and purchase the best equipment, all making them world-class.

Some Turkish alumni ask: why should I give back to my alma mater? One answer is to make them world-class. Generosity abounds in Turkish culture. Giving to those in need, or to friends and family, is second nature to anyone from Anatolia. Yet, despite this culture of giving to one another, Turkish alumni do not have a philanthropic tradition toward institutions. This is especially evident in the level of philanthropy for higher education. Another reason to give is that we want our universities to improve and keep Turkey’s brightest minds in country. It is also vital to provide these Turkish schools with support so our hard-earned degrees can become stronger and more valuable on our CVs.

Additionally, we should give back out of gratitude for what was given freely to us—either from the school itself or from our parents who paid for it. This is a way of expressing our thankfulness.

It is important to understand why Turkish alumni may hesitate to donate back to their institutions, while on the other hand they may donate easily to a foundation such as Kızılay or Turk Hava Kurumu at Kurban Bayramı. One reason can be the perception that the universities are rich – that they don’t need money. Another obstacle is, due to past incidents in society, there tends to be a mistrust of authorities and funding. Lastly, in Turkey there is often a lack of the university “spirit” that is found on American campuses. Turkish universities are often missing the mascots, theme songs, insignia clothing, and other essentials that can contribute to school spirit and bond people into a community.

These obstacles can be overcome, but only with some work. School administrations could share budgetary needs with alumni and friends, allowing them to see the areas where increased funding could help the school improve. Second, the university can help by being transparent about how funds are used and staying accountable to the alumni donors. We must also cultivate a better school spirit while alumni are still students, giving them the feeling of a university family, and not just a place one attends for four years.

Lastly, the school should work through its alumni office to stay in touch with students after they graduate, keeping and updating their contact data and communicating regularly.

If alumni give back significantly to their Turkish universities, Turkey’s higher education outlook would brighten. We could decrease brain drain, improve the strength of our degrees, and watch our alma maters rise to world-class levels.
Investigate what your university is doing in philanthropy. Find out if there’s a way to give back. Start small—just $50 or $100 at first could make a big difference and help familiarize you with giving back in the future.

Karalyn Watson earned her B.A. in Journalism at the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill, then her masters degree in 2007 in International Relations at Bilkent University, Ankara. Since then, she has been working for Bilkent in the U.S. as the Alumni Relations and Development Director for their North America branch. There are roughly 1,200 Bilkent alumni spread across the U.S. and Canada. She is in the process of also expanding the program to the United Kingdom.

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Young Photographers Award Exhibition: Nov. 27th in ISTANBUL

2010-11-12T15:50:00.004-05:00

Young Photographers Award Exhibition is opening at Fotografevi in Istanbul, Turkey on November 27, 2010. The exhibition will feature the works of Nevzat Yildirim of Kocaeli Univerity, the recipient of the inaugural Young Photographers Award, and sixteen other photographers who participated in the competition. The Young Photographers Award Fund was established as a Donor-Advised Fund at Turkish Philanthropy Funds by Elisa and Haluk Soykan in 2010 to encourage and support undergraduate students of photography at Turkish universities. The award is jointly administered by The American Turkish Society and Moon and Stars Project.

Opening Reception:
Saturday, November 27th - 6:00 pm-7:30 pm
Fotografevi - Istiklal Caddesi, Tutuncu Cikmazi, No: 4
Beyoglu, Istanbul, TURKEY
Tel: +90 (212) 249-0202

Exhibition Dates:
November 27 - December 3, 2010
Monday through Saturday 9:30 am-7:30 pm

Photograph © Nevzat Yıldırım, winner of the 2010 Young Photographers Award
Tired Apprentice, 2010 | from "Producing Liberates"

Giving a Gift and Getting a Return

2010-11-11T10:43:00.001-05:00

By JAN M. ROSEN
Published: November 10, 2010 in NYTimes

FOR retirees increasingly worried as interest rates on their savings accounts and money market funds have plunged below 1 percent, an appeal from their alma mater or a respected charity, offering a return of 5 percent or more on a charitable gift annuity, can seem like a rare opportunity.

Is it? Or is there a catch? The answer to both questions is no. But the questions are simplistic.

Better to ask yourself: “Do I want to support the charity?” and “Is a gift annuity a wise choice for me?” If you answer the first one with a yes, then you need to assess your finances and understand what charitable gift annuities are and how they work.

“Some people assume it’s like a bank account,” said Avery E. Neumark, a retirement specialist and partner in the New York accounting firm Rosen Seymour Shapss Martin & Company. “But it’s not. It is just what the name says — a gift. You give away the principal, and you get a guaranteed lifetime income. You can’t compare that with today’s money market rates. The downside is you are locked in.”

The rates, which far exceed today’s annual 1.1 percent inflation rate, might seem low years from now if inflation heats up.

For the choice to be a wise one, Mr. Neumark said, people should generally be nearing retirement and charitably inclined, have liquid assets and other income and have taken care of other needs. “I had one client who did very well,” he said. “He was 90 years old, so the rate was very high, and he lived until he was 103.”

The American Council on Gift Annuities defines the product as a contract under which a charity, in return for a gift of cash or property, agrees to pay a fixed amount over the term of either one or two lives, usually the donors’. Most reputable charities use rates recommended by the council, which vary with the annuitants’ ages and whether there are one or two. Because of the charity, there are tax benefits.

For a single life, the latest rate table called for a 55-year-old to receive 5 percent a year, a 60-year-old 5.2 percent, a 65-year-old 5.5 percent, a 70-year-old 5.8 percent, an 80-year-old 7.2 percent and someone 90 or older 9.5 percent.

Prospective donors can calculate their own rates and tax benefits at the Web site: pcalc.ptec.com/hosts/989357365/CGA. For a $100,000 gift annuity covering one person aged 65 and another aged 62, the site calculator showed an immediate tax deduction of $12,179.50 and an annual annuity payment of $5,000. Of the latter, $3,326.53 would be tax-free because it represented a return of principal and $1,673.47 would be taxed as ordinary income.

After 26.4 years, their joint life expectancy, all payments would be taxable as ordinary income.

Conrad Teitell, a lawyer in Stamford, Conn., who represents the council and a number of large charities, said donors could donate appreciated assets and avoid immediate payment of capital gains tax. The gain is prorated annually over the donor’s life expectancy, and the taxable portion of the annuity payments is divided into ordinary income and capital gains.

Donors do not have to begin taking annuity payments immediately, he said; they can defer payments for a year or more. That can be a good option for people who are employed and in a high tax bracket, but who expect to retire in a year or so.

Some states require charities to meet criteria, including initial registration, notification and annual filing, to sponsor charitable gift annuities. Others are silent. Many are somewhere in between. Mr. Teitell advised prospective donors to check on their own states at the American Council on Gift Annuities Web site (www.acga-web.org/regs/regsoverview.html).

If one’s home state does not require charities to meet any criteria, see whether a charity is authorized to offer annuities in a stricter state, and check its financial soundness at the Better Business Bureau (www.bbb.org/us/charity) and Charity Navigator (www.CharityNavigator.org).

A sound approach is not to become involved with a charity that does not meet the standards of a tougher state, because annuity payments are a general obligation of the charity. Though failure to meet the obligation is rare, some charities take out reinsurance, a matter worth discussing with a prospective recipient.

Paul Horrocks, vice president of the New York Life Insurance Company, which sells individual annuity policies and also works with charities on gift annuities, said donors could “accomplish the same thing in two ways,” either through a charitable gift annuity that might pay 5 percent or by dividing the amount into an outright gift to the charity and a commercial annuity that would pay about 7 percent.

Don Greene, national philanthropic product executive for Bank of America Merrill Lynch, favors charitable gift annuities. They are a way for “lower-end donors” to enter the world of “structured philanthropy,” he said, and “they offer tax advantages and a consistent level of support for a spouse.”

The gift is irrevocable, he added, but a person who is committed to charity, by including a bequest in her will, for example, might want to consider a gift annuity instead and enjoy making the gift during her life.

Please call Turkish Philanthropy Funds at 646.530.8988 if you would like to learn more about Gift Annuities and Other Planned Giving Options or visit our website for more information.

Innovation Philanthropy: Mobilizing Turkey's International Brain Power

2010-11-08T12:00:00.003-05:00

Posted by Dr. Banu Onaral

Since 1950’s, Turkey, along with other developing countries focused on educating scientists, engineers and business professionals to spark economic growth and unleash ‘innovation ecosystems’. It was a miscalculation. Turkey created a ‘brain power’ for which its economic system was unprepared. This prompted a ‘brain drain,’ exporting its best and brightest to the West, which offered opportunities to match their skills.

This has been changing in recent years. With an estimated 30 000 to 40 000 of its scholars, scientists, engineers, medical doctors and high ranking professionals and executives living outside its borders, Turkey is starting to realize the power and the importance of its own international ‘brain network.’ Organizations such as Turkish Philanthropy Funds have started to build these networks by building bridges between those abroad and their compatriots at home. They are helping accelerate Turkey's social and economic development through transnational ‘innovation partnerships.’ It is a phenomenon that has come be called ‘innovation philanthropy.’

Also referred to as "philanthropy to build social capital," innovation philanthropy is centered on knowledge, science and technology-based social and economic development. It is founded on mutual respect and understanding gained through shared mission and equal partnership between the philanthropists and the private, public, academic and civil society sectors.

Innovation philanthropists are those who donate professional expertise, contribute strategies, share their experiences and material resources to enable their local counterparts to take charge in science and technology based initiatives. It’s ‘philanthropy through solutions,’ focusing on addressing the unmet needs of a developing society. Innovation philanthropy does not impose, rather partners to identify, to assess, to connect, to leverage the existing resources that may not yet be integrated and fills the gaps.

INOVIZ: Izmir for Health Initiative is an example of innovation philanthropy. Since March 2009, INOVIZ has mobilized human and physical resources in life sciences, biomedical technology and healthcare services so that Izmir, Turkey’s 3rdlargest city, can brand itself as a health center. The initiative has facilitated more than ten meetings, workshops and conferences and culminated in the Global INOVIZ Conference, held on May 24-25, 2010 with regional, national and international participants. Turkish ex-pats are showing interest and Izmir’s goal of becoming a health center is progressing.

INOVIZ demonstrates the importance of platforms. Change cannot happen without space and room to grow. INOVIZ provides that space, convenes the community and builds trust among sectors of the society. The trust deficit is ultimately the most challenging for the developing world. INOVIZ is a regional innovation model that helps turn the country’s ‘brain drain’ into a ‘brain gain.’ Transnational ‘innovation philanthropists’ are currently contributing to similar initiatives in Ankara, Eskisehir, Istanbul as well as other cities, each emerging from the realities of the locality to address their unmet needs as they become part of the innovation economy. This is how ‘innovation ecosystems will ultimately thrive.

Dr. Banu Onaral is H. H. Sun Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Electrical Engineering at Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA. She holds a Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania and BSEE and MSEE in Electrical Engineering from Bogazici University. Dr. Onaral’s translational research efforts for rapid commercialization of biomedical technologies developed Translational Research in Biomedical Technologies program, which brings together academic technology developers with entrepreneurs, regional economic development agencies, as well as local legal, business, and investment communities. Dr. Onaral serves on the Engineering Advisory Board of National Science Foundation's and on the board of trustees of Sabanci University. Read more.

Visit TPF website.

Recent Changes to Turkish Constitution Present Opportunity for Gender Equality Advancement

2010-10-18T11:06:00.003-04:00

Posted by Lou Anne King Jensen

A majority of Turkish voters recently approved a referendum to amend the Turkish constitution. These accepted changes bring Turkey further in line with EU standards, including equality before the law. The modification regarding gender equality ensures that measures can be implemented that will increase the participation of women in the social, economic, and political spheres. Many women’s groups are now hoping that the government will actually institute such actions.

The inclusion of women into public spaces is imperative since gender disparities remain high in Turkey. Large numbers of Turkish women are illiterate, many do not participate in the labor force, and their representation in politics is low. While illiteracy rates for women have decreased from 33.9% to 19.6% since the 1990s overall, illiteracy rates continue to be much higher for women in the southeastern part of the country. Women’s labor participation has declined from 34.3% in 1988 to 22% in 2008, in sharp contrast to other countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), while 97.2% of all employers in the country are male. Political representation of women in parliament increased to 9.1% of the total seats in 2007. However, in 2009 only 0.9% of mayors (27 out of 2948) were women. Causes cited for these discrepancies include inadequate education, cultural traditions, childcare issues, limited knowledge of political processes, funding deficiencies, women’s lack of confidence, and a shortage of advancement opportunities.*

Despite these challenges, philanthropic foundations and individual philanthropists can take actions to ensure progress continues to be made regarding the inclusion of women. Fields that need to be supported include the following:

research that advances knowledge regarding gender equality;
innovative programs that educate and encourage women;
opportunities for the facilitation of linkages between local, national, and international women’s organizations that can provide access to new models, best practices, and serve as support networks;
efforts to strengthen funding for women’s initiatives; and
policy reform endeavors.

There are many excellent organizations working to support women in a variety of areas in Turkey. Some of my favorites include the following:

KAMER Foundation;
Turkish Philanthropy Funds - Gender Equality selections; and
Women for Women’s Human Rights - New Ways.

The approval of the referendum presents all of us with the opportunity to renew our efforts on behalf of women. While many women’s groups are calling on the government to put measures into place that will increase the participation of women, each one of us can be a part of the solution now by incorporating the principle of gender inclusion in our businesses, philanthropic efforts, and in the daily choices we make. It is my hope we will all find ways to give meaning to the passage of the gender component of the referendum by fostering positive change on behalf of women each and every day.

* The statistics and some ideas contained in this section come from Eder, M., (2010). Turkey. In Ellen Lust, The Middle East (pp. 730-760). Washington, DC: CG Press.

Lou Anne King Jensen is a licensed master social worker recognized for independent practice and President of the Chrest Foundation, a private foundation that has been supporting social projects in Turkey since 2001. She also serves as an advisor or board member to a number of philanthropies and non-profit organizations including those related to Turkey, women, diabetes research, and college scholarships for students.

Visit TPF website.

Creating Opportunities for Youth!

2010-10-15T12:19:00.002-04:00

Supporters of Turkish Philanthropy Funds partners, Toplum Gonulluleri Vakfi- TOG (Community Volunteers Foundation of Turkey) and Sabanci University - SU, will be participating in the 32nd Intercontinental Eurasia Marathon this Sunday, October 17th in Istanbul. Both TOG and SU teams are running for a notable cause: to create opportunities for youth to achieve successful futures.

One of the founders and board member of TOG, Ibrahim Betil, will be running in support of their "Valuing Young People" project while 34 Sabanci University faculty, staff, students and supporters will be running to raise funds for their Scholarship Fund.

To support their efforts through TPF please visit their pages at TPF website. Any contributions you make to these organizations till October 20th will be relayed directly to the mentioned projects.

“Voices Unveiled: Turkish Women Who Dare”

2010-10-06T12:00:00.005-04:00

Turkish Philanthropy Funds along with The American Turkish Society presents “Voices Unveiled: Turkish Women Who Dare” tonight at NYIT Auditorium on Broadway.

Date: October 6, 2010

Time: 6:00 PM-8:30 PM

Location: NYIT Auditorium on Broadway
1871 Broadway (Between 61st and 62nd Streets)

Set in Turkey, Voices Unveiled explores the clash of the East and the West through the lives of three Turkish women – an activist, an artist and a dancer – who struggle to find their own voices in a traditional world. Turkish Women Who Dare is not just the story of three brave Turkish women. It highlights the obstacles and challenges women in Turkey face -- obstacles and challenges that prevent them from reaching their potential -- obstacles and challenges that must be broken down -- that we must break down. These individuals’ struggles for personal empowerment reflect the challenges faced by women worldwide. Through their stories, the film examines such timely issues as societal change and the intersections between secularism, traditional values, and gender equality.

Women's issues is at the heart of one of the causes TPF addresses. That's why tonight's screening is significant. The goal tonight is not only to raise awareness but also invite you to take action so we can bring women's tenacity, intelligence and creativity to the forefront and encourage them to make profound contributions to our society. Learn more on how you can take action through TPF.

This event is free and open to the public. However, space is limited and RSVP is required. RSVP for tonight's screening here.

Making of the Documentary "Voices Unveiled: Turkish Women Who Dare”

2010-10-01T10:29:00.002-04:00

Posted by Binnur Karaevli

Growing up in a progressive family in Istanbul, I was provided with a great education and encouraged to pursue a career by my family. However, I still felt society’s pressures in how I should behave and act as a woman. “What would the neighbors think?” is a common worry for a lot of Turkish women no matter how liberated their families might be. For the privileged, this subtle oppression might be irritating but a larger segment of women’s lives are dictated by the notion of the woman’s purity of reputation and honor. In many less developed parts of Turkey, “honor” means a woman’s obedience. “Honor killings,” the practice of murdering women at the hands of their family for transgressions such as extra-marital sex, are still practiced in the impoverished provinces.

As I set out to make the documentary, “Voices Unveiled,” my goal was to discover Turkish women who defied restrictions in the pursuit of their own dreams and thereby convey their stories. During the filming, I met women from all walks of life but decided to concentrate on the stories of an artist, an activist and a dancer representing a cross section. Belkis (60s), Nur (50s) and Banu (20s), reflected different aspects of my personality. I felt a strong connection to Belkis’ art because her art is rooted in the traditional form of kilim, (Turkish Tapestry) and yet she creates abstract, minimalist and forceful designs that break out of the box and transcend the form. I immediately responded to Nur’s compassionate and diligent efforts on behalf of the less privileged women. Many taboos concerning “professional dance” still exists in Turkey. Banu, a champion ballroom dancer, had to fight against her family that did not accept her desire to dance publicly. She had to continually walk the line between rebelling and reassuring, pressing on while demonstrating that her dancing is a legitimate pursuit.

As I explored the main problems Turkish women face, I realized that these concerns are not unique to Turkey. Gender inequality, and lack of education, economic freedom, and sexual and bodily rights afflict many women in the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Latin America. In the film, Nur, the activist says, "Democracy is impossible without women being empowered." My goal with "Voices Unveiled" is to communicate to the audience the link between democracy and gender rights in the world.

Binnur Karaevli was born and raised in Istanbul and earned her BFA in Drama from Carnegie-Mellon University and her MFA in Film Production from University of Southern California. Her films received top prizes from numerous film festivals around the world. She is currently working on a narrative feature film about the Ottoman Harem. She splits her time between Istanbul and Los Angeles. For more information on the documentary, please visit www.voicesunveiled.com. Binnur Karaevli can be reached by emailing binnur@voicesunveiled.com

TPF along with the American Turkish Society will be holding a screening of "Voices Unveiled: Turkish Women Who Dare" on Wednesday, October 6th. RSVP online.

Please also join Binnur Karaevli and @tphilanthropy for a tweetchat on women's sexual and bodily rights on October 5th at 2PM EST/9PM IST by using the hashtag #genderequality.

Go to TPF's website.

Illiteracy does not just mean the inability to read or write

2010-09-27T15:03:00.004-04:00

“As I would board the bus, I would ask the driver shyly whether the bus was headed in the direction I needed to go. Now, I can read the bus route. I can go wherever I want without asking anyone.”- Emine S.

“I couldn’t go to the hospital alone before. Since I couldn’t read, I couldn’t find the department I needed to go to. I was afraid to ask. I would spend so much time looking. Now I can find the hospital departments without asking anyone. I can read the door plates.”-Hamiyet K.

“My greatest wish was to learn phone numbers. When somebody gave me their number I couldn’t write it and I felt miserable. Yesterday I got a phone call. They wanted to talk to my husband. I said he wasn't home and wrote their phone number. I am so happy.” -Muteber B.

As surprising as it may seem, Emine, Hamiyet and Muteber live in Turkey’s largest and most cosmopolitan city, Istanbul. Until they enrolled in the Mother and Child Education Foundation (ACEV)’s Women Empowerment and Functional Literacy Program (FALP), they could not read.

These women are not alone. There are several thousands of women, of all ages, who like Emine migrated to Istanbul, but who are unable to integrate into city life because of illiteracy. Illiteracy does not just mean the inability to read or write. It is a situation that prevents, mainly women, from living a normal life. For the past year, FALP has helped to change that in three disadvantaged districts in Istanbul.

From October 2009, FALP has implemented a literacy program for women in their 30s and 40s in Eyup, Fatih and Kagithane, where there is a high percentage of migrants from southeastern and eastern Turkey. The majority are migrants with only a primary school education for the men and only a few years for the women. In most instances women from these parts of Turkey never even enrolled in a classroom.

With the assistance of three volunteer teachers selected by ACEV’s Functional Literacy Program, 65 women from these Istanbul districts developed basic primary school level reading skills in three months.

FALP aims “for participants to gain skills that would boost women’s status in society and the family, such as using literacy skills in daily life, benefiting form the right to lifelong education as an informed citizen, and understanding the importance of educating female children.” Raising literacy rates in Turkey is one step in the right direction.

As a result of ACEV’s literacy program, there are several dozens of women in Istanbul more confident and able to function independently in their daily lives. Pleased with its results, ACEV plans to offer more advanced courses for these women. It also plans to expand the program to other districts in Istanbul.

ACEV's FALP program is a recent grantee of TPF. Read more on the outcomes of the project here.

Tweetchat on female education and literacy

2010-09-20T16:00:00.001-04:00

We just had a very lively discussion on Twitter on female education and literacy. Thanks to everyone who joined us.
If you missed it, you can read back through it here: http://twubs.com/girlseducation

Visit TPF website.

If a Turkish girl can be President, can she change a tire? Only if she has an education.

2010-09-13T11:43:00.002-04:00

Posted by Elmira Bayrasli

My father doesn’t think I should change a tire. I am, after all, a Turkish girl – and Turkish girls don’t change tires. Interestingly, he does think that I should and can be whatever I want to be – President of the United States for example. Hence, why he encouraged me - no scratch that - ordered me to study – a lot. “Education,” he would say, “is the most important thing in the world.”

That is, unfortunately, not the norm in Turkish culture. More than half of Turkish girls do not receive anything beyond the mandatory primary education. Today, only 57.2 percent of Turkish girls are enrolled in secondary school and only 18.7 percent in tertiary – and that is an increase over the past ten years. It is a disturbing gender gap, especially for a country that has aspirations to belong to the European Union. That is why I’m so glad to be involved with the Turkish Philanthropy Funds (TPF).

In name, TPF is a foundation that assists individuals eager to make philanthropic donations to Turkey. They’re an information and due-diligence resource that helps people make knowledgeable choices in charitable giving. Translated, they’re a convener and a community eager to make a positive impact on Turkey, in four specific areas:

Gender Equality
Arts & Culture
Economic Development (entrepreneurship)
Education

It’s two of these areas: gender equality and education and the work TPF is doing is why I’ve chosen to volunteer my Wednesday mornings working at their offices.

TPF identifies, evaluates and partners with non-profits that are doing measurable work with significant outputs in these areas. One of the organizations they’ve chosen is the Mother Child Education Foundation (ACEV). It is an organization that works with rural communities to develop early childhood and adult education programs. Among the programs that they support is educating….men.

Fathers, brothers and uncles hold the key to closing Turkey’s gender gap. They must be included in efforts to increase female literacy and school enrollment. That’s what I love about ACEV’s Father Support Program. It works to “address the parenting skills and attitudes of fathers.” ACEV works with the Turkish education ministry and other education professionals to develop programs that encourage men to not only support female education, but to be involved in their daughter’s success. Beyond cool.

It is a program I found out about through TPF, as a result of the resources it makes available to those interested in making a difference in Turkey. TPF has a team that works to identify non-profits working in the four areas of focus I outlined above. More importantly, it works to ensure that those non-profits and the programs they’re implementing are having a significant and measurable impact. TPF is the quality control of Turkish philanthropy.

And quality is something we’re all looking for in every aspect of our lives. Yet somehow we don’t make it a priority when we’re giving. Our charity is, more often than not, driven by guilt as a palliative rather than thoughtful deliberation on what will affect long-term progress. The Turkish Philanthropy Funds has created the platform to help turn giving into something that is part of a community rather than conscience. It is a place to affect real change.

For me changing the lives of Turkish girls by giving them a chance at an education couldn’t be more thrilling. They’re capable of so much. And that capability is something Turkey desperately needs.

Elmira Bayrasli writes and works on economic development issues. She is writing a book Under-Development about her experiences working in government and with entrepreneurs.

Please join her in a Twitter chat to discuss this issue of female education and literacy next Monday, September 20 at 2PM EST/9PM IST using the hashtag #girlseducation.

Visit TPF website.

Guest Writers on TPF Blog

2010-08-31T10:14:00.002-04:00

As September fast approaches, we at TPF are gearing up for the new season with some exciting developments.

In the coming months, you'll be able to read about philanthropy and TPF's work on our blog by various guest writers. Leaders in philanthropy, education and civil society will share their thoughts and experiences about giving. Our first guest blogger will be Elmira Bayrasli, Vice President of Policy and Outreach at Endeavor, who has joined our communications team. Her post will appear on September 13th.

To make it easy for you to follow these updates, please subscribe to our blog. In doing so, you will receive an email alert when a new post appears. You can also find recent news and information on TPF's Facebook Fan Page, and on Twitter. Please become a fan or follow us to stay connected!

If you would like to become a guest blogger or recommend a guest blogger, please email us at blogs@tpfund.org. We are always open to new ideas and suggestions.

TPF seeks an energetic social cause marketing intern!

2010-08-06T11:54:00.002-04:00

Overview

Turkish Philanthropy Funds (TPF, www.tpfund.org) taps into and unleashes philanthropic giving from the Turkish Diaspora and friends of Turkey. It empowers these groups to take action in four key areas: gender equality, economic development, education and arts & culture.

We seek an energetic intern who will assist with TPF's social cause marketing.

Description

Founded in 2007, TPF was a group of individuals eager to make a difference for future generations of Turks and Turkish-Americans. In three years it has garned the excitement of a community that is eager to take the organization to the next level. TPF is eager to hire an intern to be a part of the TPF's team as it widens its reach with an outreach and communications program.

Hours are flexible, but will require a focus on keeping on top of current events, both in Turkey as well as the philanthropic giving circle, communicating with like-minded organizations and individuals via social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter and assisting TPF's senior management with outreach efforts.

This is a great opportunity for someone eager to own a social media portfolio and help TPF build a presence on Facebook and Twitter.

The intern will work closely with seasoned professionals, who will act as mentors and guides for professional development. It is an opportunity for an intern to widen his/her social network by meeting new people, as well as becoming a social media expert. The internship also gives interns a chance to become acquainted with Turkish non-profit sector, organizations, their people, projects and business models.

Your successfully completed internship should provide you with an excellent portfolio of deliverable projects you can use to demonstrate your social media savvy to potential employers.

Responsibilities

Social media/social networking, outreach, monitoring, experimenting
List management and communications
Website updates
Research
Stats and reporting
Growing marketing ideas in the social Web/media arena

Requirements

Strong interest in TPF's mission and vision
Commitment to social change
Interest in how social media and traditional media work and what is newsworthy
Interest in how media and communications strategies advance a public interest agenda.

The intern should be energetic, reliable, detail oriented and organized. Excellent writing skills are required. Experience in social issue organizing, communications, or journalism helpful. Knowledge of Turkish is recommended, but not required.

How to Apply

Please email a tailored cover letter, resume, 1-3 social networking profiles and availability to Senay Ataselim, COO at senay@tpfund.org

TPF at ISTR Conference in Istanbul

2010-07-02T14:04:00.004-04:00

Turkish Philanthropy Funds will be organizing a panel on transnational philanthropy and its effects on social development at the ISTR Conference on July 8 from 4:00-5:30 pm at Kadir Has University. Panelists include Lou Anne King Jensen, Dr. Banu Onaral, Haldun Tashman, and Senay Ataselim. The panel will be moderated by Dr. Mark Sidel.

For more information about the conference, visit www.istr.org.

More Good News from Caykisla!

2010-07-02T13:59:00.009-04:00

The new school built in Caykisla in honor of Esat Egesoy and Bedia Basgoz by the Porcaro Education Fund at TPF had its official opening ceremony on May 24, 2010. The children of Caykisla and their families, as well as many supporters of the school were present to celebrate this day.

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2010-04-15T15:15:00.001-04:00

USA Today will give one charity a full-page, full-color ad valued at nearly $190,000. The competition continues till Friday, April 16th, 11:59 pm (ET).

How can you help?

1. Post a tweet that reads "#AmericaWants Turkish Philanthropy Funds to get a full-page ad in USA Today. Please RT!"

2. Follow @tphilanthropy on Twitter and re-tweet our posts related to USA Today contest.

Please continue spreading the word and encouraging others to tweet.

Thank you for your support of TPF and we hope to see you on Twitter!

Return to TPF website.

Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society 2010 International Fellows visited TPF!

2010-03-26T13:30:00.003-04:00

2010 Emerging Leaders International Fellows of the Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society, Anna, Jennifer, Zeynep, Bernadette and Alexandra visited Turkish Philanthropy Funds to learn about TPF, and discuss civil society and community foundations.

Since its inception twenty years ago, the International Fellows Program has sponsored 142 fellows from 54 countries. TPF's Chief Operating Officer, Senay Ataselim (2005), and TPF's former board member Filiz Bikmen (2006) are among the former fellows.

The three-month Emerging Leaders International Fellows Program provides training to young scholar-practitioners from overseas, as well as from communities of color under-represented in the U.S. grantmaking sector, through applied research, seminars with scholars and practitioners, and professional networking opportunities. This year’s program will focus on community foundations examined through a comparative framework of philanthropic trends and civil society development in a global context.

The Fellows, who are at the Center this year are: Ms. Anna Gulevska-Chernysh from Kiev, Ukraine; Ms. Jennifer Litchfield from Winnipeg, Canada; Ms. Zeynep Meydanoğlu from Istanbul, Turkey; Ms. Bernadette Hellmann from Berlin, Germany; and Ms. Alexandra Nayeli Jiménez Martínez from México City, México.

In addition to writing an original research paper, Fellows will participate in seminars on US and international voluntary-sector activities; learn about the work of key agencies through readings and site visits; meet with leading nonprofit representatives and scholars in the field; and attend workshops relevant to their areas of interest.

TPF is proud to be one of the funders of the 2010 Emerging Leaders Program along with the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation and The Winnipeg Foundation.

Return back to TPF's website.

Elazig Earthquake

2010-03-11T15:53:00.002-05:00

In an effort to provide assistance to the victims of the earthquake in Elazığ, Turkish Philanthropy Funds has reached out to leading nonprofit organizations in Turkey to find the most feasible way to support the disaster relief efforts.

We learned that the center of the earthquake is the district of Başyurt at Karakocan however the most devastated area is the town of Kovancılar. A crisis management desk has been established at the District Governor’s Office in Kovancılar, which collects and distributes the assistance. About 2,500 people in Kovancılar were affected by the earthquake. The most needed relief products are: baby food, children clothing such as shoes, coats, sweaters, socks, etc., and personal hygiene products.

All relief products can be sent directly to:

Kovancılar Kaymakamlığı

Kriz Merkezi

Kovancılar /ELAZIĞ/TURKEY

Tel: +90-424-611-7679

+90-424-611-3001

+90-532-788-3047

As Turkish Philanthropy Funds, we won’t be collecting relief products in the US. If you would like to send money from the US to support the disaster relief efforts, please call us at 1.646.530.8988.

Visit TPF's website.