Our Goal Is To Generalize The Mission That “Women Exist At All Areas”

Women´s Association in Business World continues its works with online trainings in order to eliminate the obstacles to women's participation in the labor force. We talked about the work of the association and the effect of the pandemic process on these studies with the association's Project Manager Elif Nur Tosun who emphasized that it is important to support women's employment and encourage activities in this direction.

Stating that the association was founded in 2015, Tosun stated that their goal is “to be a leading Civil Society Organization that enables women to exist among the society within social, economic and environmental issues and to carry their existence to future generations as sustainable social entrepreneurs”. Tosun said, “We aim to support women, guide them and generalize the mission of “Women Exist At All Areas” in order for women to contribute to sustainable development in social, economic and environmental issues.” 

 “Women Begin To Realize Their Own Power At The End Of The Projects”

Stating that the women participating in the association’s projects are hesitant first, Tosun says: “At the end of the projects, they know what they want, and they realize their own power within and become ready to work in every field. What one of our mentors had said at the closing meeting of the project portrays the situation really good: ‘I was a timid sparrow, I was afraid of everything, but I learned that I was actually an eagle.’ We show women who have built their lives entirely on the lives of others to prioritize their own lives and dreams.”

Tosun summarizes the situation regarding women who participated in the trainings and then started their business life as follows: “17 people from 57 participants have been employed within our “Now It’s Our Turn” Project funded by the Ministry of Internal Affairs Department of Associations in 2018. In our project which we carried out in 2019 named “İş Bilen Kadınlar Geliyor” that was financed by the European Union, 10 people out of 100 participants were provided with mentorship training and were integrated in business life. However, due to the recent economic crisis and the epidemic, our women could not get the jobs or could not engage in business establishment activities at the expected rate.”

“We Will Continue Our Trainings Online”

Stating that they had to suspend their work due to the Covid-19 process, Tosun said: “Due to the epidemic process, we took a break from our association activities and our project “The Women Entrepreneurs in the Digital World” which we carried out in cooperation with the Union of Istanbul Union of Chamber of Merchants and Craftsmen, which we started as of 01.01.2020. We intend to provide the trainings within our project online in digital environments.”

Expressing that they have written a Project for Istanbul Development Agency General Secretariat for the Struggle and Endurance Against Covid-19, Tosun said: “Within the scope of the project, it is planned to establish a web-based education and online education certification system to encourage women’s home-based work, to reduce the negative impacts on education and workflows during the epidemic process, and to improve the quality of women’s professional and daily lives. In this system, approximately 100 women will be provided free training in the first application with 20 online training modules in entrepreneurship and in digital fields. Trainings will continue online during and after the epidemic.”