With İNGEV Flash News, we started to inform refugee SMEs about economic developments. Flash News, which runs on Telegram, aims to quickly report general news about economic developments, regulations implemented in the Covid-19 normalization period, and brand-new supports from non-governmental organizations. “INGEV Flash News” offer news services only in Arabic language.
INGEV President Vural Cakir has started putting down his entrepreneurship experiences on paper with a new series of articles on the INGEV website. The series walk the readers through the stories of 2 major research companies Cakir started; all the way from their founding to their mergers and international acquisitions.
The series, consisting of 6 articles by Cakir, describe the era of the Turkish economy that witnessed the opening up of the national market to the entry of foreign capital for the first time. They cover the birth of private research companies in 1990s Turkey as well as the national and international mergers taking place at the time. The article series have already drawn considerable interest. You can reach them (only in Turkish) from the link below:
Refugee Entrepreneurs faced many challenges regarding putting their business ideas into practice, accessing livelihood opportunities, and recruiting employees. On top of these they now had to deal with the serious difficulties caused by the Covid-19 epidemic. In this critical period, it has emerged that companies could benefit from more digitalization and that e-commerce opportunities are vital for competitiveness. In order to support such needs of SMEs established by refugees, INGEV implemented a comprehensive support program in cooperation with UNDP.
In this process, the expert team of INGEV GDM has provided consultancy services to more than 40 refugee entrepreneurs and SMEs in areas such as digital communications / digital tools; content creation and graphic design for management of corporate social media and accessing e-commerce platforms.
In addition to these, INGEV GDM also developed the corporate web pages of several selected SMEs, designed their web content and followed through on their technical needs to publish their websites.
Two of the companies that received such support from INGEV are:
Alkham Trading Ltd., a foreign trade company established in Hatay Reyhanlı.
http://alhkamtrading.com/en/home/
Kari Tekstil operating in Istanbul in the field of ready-made clothing manufacturing.
http://karitextile.com/en/home/
In the upcoming period, we aim to implement different types of support mechanisms to meet various needs of Refugee Entrepreneurs and SMEs in terms of digitalization and IT infrastructure.
The project “Improving Access to Livelihood Opportunities for Refugees with Disabilities”, which continues with the cooperation of Relief International and the support of PRM, has reached a very important stage. Our “Resume-CV Preparation and Interview Techniques” trainings for Syrian and Turkish disabled individuals actively seeking jobs and residing in Istanbul were completed in June. The next phase of the project will consist of providing vocational trainings for beneficiaries and matching them with jobs based on sectoral needs in Istanbul.
İNGEV initiates the İNGEV Digital Fair (INGEV D-FAIRs) chain of events by strengthening its efforts to support fragile community segments with a new initiative. The first digital fair will take place on September 12-15, 2020 and will include SMEs established by Syrians.
Various seminars, panels, business meetings and entertainment events are also included in the fair. İNGEV D-FAIRs will take place in three languages, increase job opportunities for the export of Syrian SMEs mainly in Arabic-speaking countries and also aims to strengthen their contributions to the Turkish economy. In addition to this, İNGEV D-FAIRs focuses on assisting Syrian SMEs to get them into both national and international markets, to extend their operations with new partnerships and to create opportunities to increase social good.
For İNGEV D-FAIRs, İNGEV has collaborated with Endless Fairs, the leading company in its field, which has already delivered digital fair operation services in many countries.
Both organizations aim to continue their fair activities in series, especially for supporting the fragile community segments. Soydan Cengiz manages INGEV D-FAIRs operations.
For more information : https://www.ingev-dfairs.org/en/home/
We are happy to announce the launch of a new project in collaboration with Relief International, dedicated to Syrian entrepreneurs with disabilities who comply with at least one of the following conditions:
– To have Syrian citizenship along with a disability report (minimum %40), owning his/her own company which is affected by COVID-19 pandemic.
OR
– Has at least one Syrian disabled employee (minimum %40).
Terms of Applications (in Arabic): shorturl.at/koxK5
For further information, you can contact us via 05524502824.
It is our hope that the corona virus pandemic has entered a downward trend in Turkey and the world alike. I’d like to call this episode the transition to the post-Corona period. This is an interim phase where we will have to make progress on various fronts. A time of social mobilization awaits us.
Disabled individuals are one of the most vulnerable groups of the society, and no matter how valuable both the academic and practical studies conducted on this subject are, it can be possible to transform it into a systematics and record it, only by way of mapping or creating a database.
At this very point, INGEV in cooperation with Relief International launched an online map involving more than 100 organizations that deliver support in a wide range of specialties for people with disabilities across Istanbul.
The map includes the organisations offering support in employment, entrepreneurship and healthcare, by their specialities in a detailed way, so that the services delivered to the individuals with disabilities can be fulfilled in an holistic manner. While Abledturkey.com shows the disabled people what services they can get and where they can get these services, it also allows the organizations to get informed of each other.
The “online” map, which also lists the organisations rendering services to the refugees and disabled refugees in Istanbul, home to over half a million Syrian refugees, is available in Turkish, Arabic and English language versions.
To access the online map: www.abledturkey.com
* This map application is released with a view to serving the people with disabilities within the scope of the project “Improving Access to Livelihood Opportunities for Refugees with Disabilities” carried out with the support of PRM and in cooperation with Relief International and INGEV.
The report “Digital Governance Opportunities for Local Administrations” prepared by INGEV in cooperation with IPC and University of Oxford is published. The report probes into a topic that has become of vital importance upon the outbreak of Corona virus pandemic. INGEV President Vural Cakir addresses these opportunities, in the preface he drafted, as follows:
The Corona epidemic showed how critical it is to position the relationship of the municipality and residents on a platform that will run on a two-way digital platform and is supported by algorithms. It is necessary to adopt platforms that operate between the digital citizen groups created either on the basis of neighborhoods or streets and municipal administrations.
Municipalities have to work, take decisions in cooperation with a number of public offices and ensure coordination in terms of implementation. Digital transformation can also create opportunities to radically change the process. The pandemic we confront has showed the need for establishing the rules to build and operate the coordination networks.
It is now time to speed up for the creation of networks that bring the municipalities and NGO administrations together digitally on the basis of larger cities or towns, and owns their own expertise, operating systems and action rules.
For your questions and inquiries about the report: berk.coker@ingev.org
INGEV Digital Support Center (DDM) started its operations. The activities led by Kamal Bakour are executed in three languages: Turkish, Arabic and English. The supports provided include, among others, website building and development, content creation and development, graphic designs, social media setup and management. The main target group of the activities, which are deemed as a follow-up of INGEV’s entrepreneurship supports, is the small and medium sized businesses and “start-ups”.
