TEACHER SUPPORT WORKSHOP
The training activities of the Teacher Support Workshop, carried out with the support of the Clubs as Turkish Union project, started with online training on January 9, 2022 under the coordination of the EKİP platform, following the first face-to-face training program held in Ankara in December 2021.
These trainings for teachers, in which different teaching methods are explained and practical studies done, will be held online until June. The project will end with a face-to-face evaluation meeting in June. Ceren Yılmazer, who is a teacher of mathematics in Muğla, receives this training with the recommendation of Göztepe Soroptimist Club.
YOUTH CAMP
A Youth Camp, to strengthen and support the individual development and education of the scholars was organized by the Turkish Union in Çeşme Şifne Thermal Hotel during 12 to 17 September, 2022. 22 students and 22 instructors attended the camp.
Our club members took active part in the program.
Benal İnceer provided very useful information on “Close Relations/Intense Emotions, Behavior Change Therapy” every afternoon during the entire program. Nazlı Yolaç delivered a speech under the title “Why do We Need Law” within the scope of the “Easily” project moderated by Gül Üstün, a member of the Etiler Club. Şerife Eren shared her “Success Story” of her professional life experiences as a role model. President Zeynep Edes was present during the event as the club representative. Bergün Kardeş, Duygu Yurtseven, Merve Çelebi, Ayşe Baykan, Özge Erdoğan and Seval Yarkan supported the project by attending the event on certain days.
Scholars were entertained with various activities besides studies. Meticulously selected topics and activities, both in terms of content and social program were a factor in the success of the camp.
EASILY
Turkish Union”s EASILY project aims to increase the legal literacy of underprivileged women in different provinces of Turkey, to support their access to justice by explaining judicial aid and support routes, encourage the exercise of legal rights through a social media campaign and craft based playful education. With this project, it is aimed to contribute to the prevention of active and passive violations of women”s rights in Turkey.
In this perspective, face-to-face interactive trainings were planned with 726 women with limited opportunities, through clubs and community training centers within Turkish Union.
Each club made various practices in its own province. Göztepe Club”s application area for the project was Gediz House mothers. The project, which was planned as four sessions, started on September 29, 2022 and ended on October 18, 2022 and reached 26 women. While our lawyer members delivered information in the sessions, Benal İnceer acted as moderator, Begüm Huntürk, Merve Çelebi and Ayşegül Kışlal acted as coordinators.
In September 29 session, Nazlı Yolaç lectured on “Why do we need law” and again Nazlı Yolaç on “Gender Based Violence” in October 11. Özge Erdoğan lectured on “Family Law” in October 12. İnci Menemencioğlu lectured on “Women”s Economic Rights” in October 18.
Sessions started at 14.00 and lasted for an hour or an hour and a half. Tea, coffee, soft drinks, pies, muffins, cookies, etc. was served in order to create a warm educational environment where women can express themselves comfortably. Gifts as reminders was distrubuted at the end of each session and had a raffle for the day”s winner.
In each session, different handcraft works were carried out to make them feel more equal and more comfortable, considering that it would serve as an icebreaker to decrease the gap of status between the participants and ourselves.
The first session’s activity was threading necklaces of 99 beads of red, green and orange colors, representing our lives as “Our Life in Beads” theme; green for joyful and happy days, orange for ordinary days, red for hard or sorrowful days and finally a big bead for future expectations. These necklaces visualized the participating women’s lives in beads.
The second session’s activity was embroided fabrics named as “Fabric of Life”. Fabrics with 25 tiny squares were distributed and women were expected to embroider what they felt within 24 hours. The women expressed how safe they feel within relationships with the colors they embroidered; atmosphere based on equality and respect, communicant and shared, with green; nonviolent relationships, with orange; relationships with less love but more control and violence, with red threads. Hope for the future was expressed on the 25th square.
In the third session of the handcraft work, a blanket named as “When the Loops Unravel” was created, by which the women conveyed their thoughts on divorce and alimony. Narration and handwork progressed simultaneously through training. Felt in green, orange and red colors, shining buttons, knitting thread, crochet hooks, needles and thread were distributed to the participants. They were asked to express their thoughts about divorce, if positive or negative, with felts in green, orange and red. They expressed the effect of women”s economic freedom on divorce by sewing different colored buttons on felt, reflecting ideas such as yes/no/I don”t know. They expressed their thoughts on alimony and family property by crocheting different colors of yarn around the felt, each symbolizing a different thought.
In the fourth session, women were asked to complete a calendar titled “A Diary of Livelihood” that emphasized their economic rights. On an imaginary 30-day calendar, they marked with pastel pencils and black and white stamps both their livelihoods and their work days and unpaid housework days. They painted the days they felt comfortable and secure in green, insecure and with trouble in red, average days in orange. They marked the paid days with white stamps and the days of unpaid housework with black stamps.
The coordinators were in charge of organizing the session venues, arranging the necessary materials and tools given to each participant, getting ready the refreshments and documenting the sessions with photographs and videos.
The project, which we applied in Gediz House, was also carried out with Aegean Adult Education Center in İzmir (EgeTEM) with the cooperation of 5 clubs of İzmir, reaching a total of 68 women in Buca Municipality Cemal Yetkiner Culture and Art House.
