İNGEV

INGEV Entrepreneurship Support Center Launched Following an Opening Cocktail

In cooperation with Building Markets and Habitat Association and within the scope of “Refugee Entrepreneurship Support Project”, INGEV Entrepreneurship Support Center Opening Cocktail was organized with the participation of representatives from civil society organizations, INGOs and Turkish business sector.

Representatives from DEİK, Kızılay, İSTESOB, UNHCR, Sultanbeyli Municipality, UnitedWork, SIAD (Syrian Businessmen Association), SEF (Syrian Economic Forum), Syrian Associations Platform, Save the Children, Refugees Association and our project partners from Habitat Association and Building Markets have participated to the opening cocktail.

INGEV Entrepreneurship Support Center gives consultancy and guidance on mentorship, training, establishment and access to business networks for actualizing the business ideas of Syrian entrepreneurs and increase the capacities of existing enterprises.

“Education is a Must” Call Center Project’s Outputs were Shared at an International Workshop

Yaşar University hosted an international workshop titled “Integration of Refugees into Higher Education: Comparative Country Cases” on the 5th of December. With the participation of representatives from different countries’ universities, public institutions, and international organizations, INGEV’s “Education is a Must” Call Center Project’s outputs were shared during an international workshop.

Within the scope of EU Regional Trust Fund, “Education is a Must” Call Center Project has been conducted by INGEV and Bahçeşehir University with the cooperation of HOPES Regional Program, Germany Academic Exchange Services, British Council, Campuse France and Nuffic. The ongoing call center aims to provide counseling support to young potential Syrian students applying for admission to the universities’ undergraduate degrees, sharing information about the application procedures, scholarship and dormitory opportunities, language courses and so on.

“Education is a Must” Call Center Project’s Outputs were Shared at an International Workshop

INGEV-ILO Co-Hosted “Garment Manufacturing Value Chain Analysis in Istanbul” Workshop

International Labor Organization (ILO) and INGEV co-hosted a workshop on December 5^th on how to improve new work opportunities for Syrian refugees and host community in the sector of garment manufacturing in Istanbul.

As a part of the project, consulted by Prof. Murat Şeker of Istanbul University, the data driven from the findings of chain analysis research were discussed during the round table meetings with representatives from business sector and civil society.

Associations participated to the workshop:

-Istanbul Chamber of Industry (İSO) – Mahir Eller

-Textile Employer’s Syndicate of Turkey

-Istanbul Textile & Apparel Exporters Association (İTKİB)

-Turkish Clothing Manufacturers’ Association (TGSD)

-Hosiery Manufacturers’ Association (ÇSD)

-Merter Industrialists’ and Businessmen’s Association

-United Work

-Boyner

-Suteks Tekstil

-Mirimalist

-Agen Tex.

“Human Development Index-Districts” Awards Announced

In the context of Human Development Index-Districts (HDI-D), mayors of districts, which perform “The Highest Human Development”, were awarded. Following the Brand Week conference, the award ceremony took place on the 9th of November. Before the ceremony, the chairman of the HDI-D project, Prof. Murat Şeker, gave a speech on the process and the features of the work. INGEV chairman Vural Çakır talked about the need for the management philosophy and application strategy for human development, and how he is proud of INGEV’s work supporting human development.

Mayors of Beşiktaş, Kadıköy, Çankaya, Çekmeköy, Ümraniye, Şişli, Nilüfer, Muratpaşa, Karşıyaka, Tepebaşı, Bakırköy, Maltepe, Üsküdar, Yenimahalle, Sarıyer, Ataşehir, İzmit, Avcılar, and Beylikdüzü received awards from INGEV chairman, Vural Çakır.

INGEV Participated in Brand Week’s Session, “Refugees, Integration to Consumer Markets”

INGEV participated in Brand Week’s session, “Refugees, Integration to Consumer Markets” on the 8th of November. Unilever Turkey board member / Turkey chairman of Global Compact Mustafa Seçkin, BİM Markets’ chief operating officer and executive committee member Galip Aykaç, and co-founder of More Design, Sima Al Kanawati, participated in the session on the latest situation of refugees, and their income sources and consuming markets. The session, moderated by INGEV chairman Vural Çakır, took place at the Turkish Airlines Inspiration Hall, the biggest hall of Brand Week festival. Some of the points from the session are summarized below:

Vural Çakır: “80 billion dollars left Syria because of the Syrian civil war as capital transferred to other countries. Although Turkey hosts the majority of expatriate Syrians in comparison to other hosting countries, the transferred capital to Turkey totals only 5 billion dollars. And in spite of the high level of migration, we should never allow xenophobia; social cohesion requires this approach.”

Mustafa Seçkin: “If we support inclusive life, we cannot ignore Syrians in Turkey who comprise 5 percent of the population. In the context of Unilever’s Embark project, mentors and mentees have changed their places and experts from out of the company have trained 13 CEOs of Unilever. As business world we should recognize the importance of the refugee issue.”

Galip Aykaç: “We face one of the world’s most important migrations. It is impossible for the state to overcome the problem alone. As private sector we should also take on responsibility. It is the reason why we work to meet the needs of Syrians. This shedding of blood and tears should end.”

INGEV Hosted “Refugee Entrepreneurship Session” at Kartepe Summit

INGEV hosted an important session at Kartepe Summit convened under the theme “Migration, Refugee and Humanity” on 26-27-28^th of October.

INGEV Chairman Vural Çakır moderated the session “An Overview of Syrian Entrepreneurship and Development Opportunities” addressing refugee businesspersons and entrepreneurs. Other speakers of the session were Chairman of Syrian Economic Forum (SEF) Tamam Albaroudi, co-founder of Ejadjob.com and Liliom Company Mohammad Kawsara, and CEO of MoreDesign Architecture, a woman refugee entrepreneur Sima Al Kanawati.

At the beginning of the session, INGEV chairman Vural Çakır presented crucial chapters of INGEV’s recent report titled “Potential Areas for Companies Founded by Syrians” and shared 11 key points for increasing the contribution of refugee entrepreneurship to the Turkish economy. Chairman of SEF Tamam Albaroudi, whose organization has supported İNGEV in the writing of the report contributed Çakır’s presentation with updated information on Syrian businesses operating in Turkey.

The session continued with the success stories of two prominent Syrian entrepreneurs in Turkey, Mohamad Kawsara and Sima Al Kanawati.

Services We Provide at INGEV

While İNGEV provides services from sustainable development and human development perspectives in our country, we provide our services through these four units. These are İNGEV TAM (Social Research Center), İNGEV GDM (Entrepreneurship Support Center), İNGEV MT (Mentorship and Training), and İNGEV DDM (Digital Support Center). Click to have a detailed glance at our activities.

Potential Enhancement Areas For Companies Established By Syrians

ActHuman Social Inclusion Hub First Social Recommendations and Policies Booklet is Out!

As a joint initiative by INGEV-IPM, “ActHuman Social Inclusion Hub”, we proudly share with you our first social recommendations and policies booklet.

Our joint initiative, initiated with the publication of our first title, “The Enhancement of Syrian Entrepreneurship to Contribute Employment and Integration”, has prepared “Potential Enhancement Areas for Companies Established by Syrians” booklet with the support of Syrian Economic Forum. This booklet starts off with a profound look at the Syrian Crisis and Syrian Entrepreneurship in Turkey. The second chapter, “Potential Enhancement Areas”, informs the reader about the 11 Enhancement Areas Regarding Legal And Financial Regulations.

What Are These Enhancement Areas? Centralization And Dissemination Of Information, Doing Business In Turkey, Legal Environment, Ease Of Travelling, Ease Of Work Permit And Quotas, Clarification/Improvement Of Financial Services, Encouragement Of Formalization And Entrepreneurship, Long Term Sustainability Guarantees, Similar Approach, Equal Opportunities, Business–Investment Orientation, Increasing The Roles Of Chambers & Associations, Labor Market Needs, Large Scale Agricultural And Livestock Projects

How did we prepare the booklet?

Following the establishment of ActHuman Social Inclusion Hub, a steering committee was formed with their objective stated as “The Enhancement of Syrian Entrepreneurship to Contribute Employment and Integration”. A general approach was conceived after the first of these committee meetings and a literature review was carried out subsequently. INGEV worked on the draft policy paper in cooperation with Syrian Economic Forum. The steering committee improved the draft policy paper with a second workshop. The policy paper was thus ready to be presented at the conference held in Salt Galata on September 27, 2017.

Syrian entrepreneurs and company owners actively participated in this first-of-its-kind conference and took part in the panels as speakers. Ministries, international institutions, national civil society organizations, university and private sector representatives also aided the policy paper with their feedback. The paper was presented by Mr. Rami Sharrack, the Director of Syrian Economic Forum, who has been part of the process since the beginning. The policy paper was finalized in line with the feedback received during the conference. It is now being circulated among members of the public and private sectors along with academic and civil society networks, which are symbolized by the four triangles in the ActHuman logo.

Click to Read Report

“Social Cohesion in Turkey” Report is Out!

“Social Cohesion in Turkey” report, written by researchers Aysen Ataseven and Çağla Bakış representing INGEV with findings acquired from 1514 face to face interviews is published with an executive summary drawn up by Fuat Keyman. The report takes on issues such as the scale and the current status of social cohesion in Turkey. Social Cohesion Index, generated within this study, will make it possible to follow these issues in the future as an important chart related to social life.

The research was conducted to measure social cohesion level of Turkish society in the latest period in which political polarisation has risen. To understand the situation more clearly, a “Social Cohesion Index” was reported within this framework. Social cohesion, within its cognitive framework, was examined under three main topics:

Correlativity
Social Relations
Collective Interest Understanding

Phenomena subjected to social cohesion were determined and based on this, question sets were written up.

The model used in this study was modified from the social cohesion models of European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (Eurofound) and Bertelsmann Stiftung.

From the preface written by Fuat Keyman;

“Lately, during Turkey’s transition process in the fields of economy, technology, urbanization as such, we are facing a Turkey where the polarisation gets bigger, the culture of living together in peace weakens, although people feel safe individually they can’t trust different individuals. Turkey looks like an “individuals’ land” which is weak in creating collective norms, in taking a part in civil society, and in trusting different individuals. In this perspective, it’s appropriate to say we live in the “Individuals’ Turkey” not in the “Norms’ Turkey”.

How can this general statement be grounded, which factors lay the groundwork for “Individuals’ Turkey”, is polarisation affects every level of social life or are there different effects? To answer these kinds of questions, we have to look at social cohesion status which is an important field of research and in which there is a rising interest. Social cohesion researches conducted by examining social correlativity, social relations, and, collective interest understanding; in general social life in a country, yield important findings related to “living together” and “social trust” relations or levels in that country. The countries with high social cohesion are the countries that are against polarisation, low in conflicts, and has high levels of living together and social trust. The research here is examining social cohesion in Turkey who is experiencing issues such as security risks and conflict areas lately.

General Social Cohesion Index in this study was measured based on sub-indexes Correlativity, Social Relations, and Collective Interest Understanding. According to this, social cohesion in Turkey is at medium level (55/100).

“Strengthening Refugee Entrepreneurship in Turkey” Mersin Workshop was Held

“Strengthening Refugee Entrepreneurship in Turkey” Mersin Workshop was organized on 12 April at Mersin Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MTSO) with the attendance of public institutions, refugee entrepreneurs, Turkish business people and representatives of non-governmental organizations. The opening speeches were delivered by INGEV Director Berk Çoker, UNHCR Livelihood Manager Damla Taşkın, and MTSO Assistant Secretary-General Ezgi Biçer Uçar at the workshop which was organized by “ActHuman Social Inclusion Initiative”, an INGEV initiative in cooperation with IPC (İstanbul Policy Center), with the cooperation of UNHCR, and found granted by European Union and the Republic of Turkey.

After the opening speeches, Small and Medium Industry Development Organization (KOSGEB) Mersin Manager Danyal Peker gave information about “Government Supports for Building Capacities of Small and Medium Scaled Enterprises”. Foreign Tade Specialist Ali Can Kahya from T.R. Ministry of Economics General Directorate of Incentive Implementation And Foreign Investment spoke about governmental incentives current in Mersin which is on 3rd Area in Turkey’s investment map under his presentation titled “Governmental Incentives for Building Local Entrepreneurship”. INGEV Board of Trustees Member Attorney Arkın Eyvazoğlu gave information which will be useful in guiding refugee entrepreneurs in the fields of trade and law in his presentation titled “Legal Obligations of Establishing Incorporations and After their Establishments”.