Great Interest To d-FAIRs From Turkey And The World…

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İNGEV d-FAIRs Women’s Clothing and Footwear virtual fair, which was held between September 12-15, received strong attendance from 20 countries. The virtual fair, which has aimed to support fragile SMEs and accelerate social cohesion and financial integration, is first of its kind.

Speaking at the opening panel on September 12th, İNGEV President Vural Çakır said “a social media campaign was conducted in 20 countries to raise awareness about our virtual fair. While it reached a total number of 8 million people, 75 thousand people visited our website. The most important purpose of the virtual fair is the social impact. As it’s first of its kind, it will remain as a brand-new experience for a while however a new approach, a new system will soon emerge where this kind of virtual fairs will increase in numbers, bringing up national and global busines to such platforms” as he underlined the importance of digitalization and social enterprise.

Orhan Turan, President of TÜRKONFED, one of the contributing organizations highlighted the digitalization of the SMEs during the pandemic and pointed out that “SMEs represent 95 percent of Turkish business. In the pandemic era we are in, especially 40 thousand SMEs within TÜRKONFED and other SMEs are looking for a way out, so it is critical to create a common sense and perspective. SMEs need to use technology appropriately and effectively, and we should look at this as a social change of mindset. ”

UNDP Deputy Representative Seher Alacacı drew attention to the importance of women’s entrepreneurship and said “We should not forget that just as jobs do not have a gender, entrepreneurship is not a gender. During the pandemic period, increasing and supporting the place of women in business life and in every field is a very important issue.”

On behalf of Building Markets, INGEV’s main supporter, Başak Saral “Previously before coming to Turkey, Syrian entrepreneurs already had a good experience in the international trade, that actually accelerated their financial integration and social cohesion in Turkey. Majority of the Syrian SMEs in Turkey operate in the footwear. ” laid emphasis on the right decision as the virtual fair concentrates on the specified sector.

Throughout the fair, many panels were organized with the participation of top executives of EBRD, the Foreign Economic Relations Board of Turkey (DEIK), Mavi Jeans, Metro Toptan, fashion celebrities and famous influencers, while 39 women’s clothing and footwear companies had the opportunity to exhibit their products. During the fair, gifts such as shoes, dresses, coats and wedding gowns from the product range of these companies were also given to the participants.

Virtual Trade Show from INGEV

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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/

Stronger Together

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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.

A Solidarity Map for Individuals with Disabilities; abledturkey.com*

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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.

Digital Governance Opportunities for the Municipalities

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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

Our Digital Supports Increasing

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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”.

Full Support for Employment and Entrepreneurship Despite the Pandemic

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INGEV, one of the most important addresses in Refugee entrepreneurship in Turkey, continues to be the main point of access for the Syrians SMEs and Business representatives, thanks to the entrepreneurship activities it has performed for over 1.5 years within INGEVGDM.

While we provide the refugee entrepreneurs with consultation services in the fields of company establishment (corporation), business development, finance and law, business as part of the project implemented in cooperation with UNDP, we also further expand the scope of the project by meeting the needs of Syrians for work permit under Temporary Protection.

As of April 2020, 53 entrepreneurs were provided with company establishment support; 220 Syrian SMEs and entrepreneurs were provided consultation assistance by means of personal experts, and more than 400 Syrians under Temporary Protection were provided with support for work permit application.

The scope of the project, which will continue until February 2021, was expanded with the support received from the expertise of the partner institution United Work, in terms of job placement and work permits. We also focus on the digitalization of the companies, which has become critical in the period of Corona Virus Pandemic, by aiming to help the Syrian entrepreneurs and SMEs to survive this period with the least amount of loss and to focus back on growth and work on employment creation process.

INGEV CHATS Reached More Than 1 Million People

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While the Corona Virus Pandemic is still effective worldwide, we continue to jazz up the life in isolation with knowledge-based conversations. While the value of digitalization has further increased in this period, we have begun to introduce various experts, academics and journalists, all specialists in their fields, to our social media followers via “INGEV CHATS”, a chat program published regularly on INGEV’s Facebook page. Assoc. Prof. Dr. Erkan Saka, Rashid Hamwi, Burcin Buke, Tugrul Eryilmaz, Vural Cakir, Prof. Dr. Fuat Keyman, Prof. Dr. Halil Nalcaoglu and Salim Kadibesegil were the guests of April.

INGEV CHATS hosted Prof. Pınar Okyay,  İbrahim Elbaşı, Duygu Eren, Ozan Sönmez, Şehnaz Tuna and Dr. Aylin Dağsalgüler in the month of May.

In the month of June and July, INGEV CHATS’ guests were Emine Erdem, Arda Kutsal, Murat Şahin, Prof. Dr. Fikret Adaman, Ayşe Sabuncu Saraçlar, Ezgi Arslan, Merve Batıkan, Levent Kahraman, Orkun Doğan, Başak Saral and Kerem Avcıergun. Within this two months, INGEV CHATS focused on topics such as The Digital state of Turkey, Entrepreneurship, SMEs, Priorities, Needs and Cooperativism, New Models, Trends.

You can visit the following links to watch the streams that are highly appreciated and each of which rolls out a new perspective. Please be advised that our live streams are in Turkish language.

https://ingev.org/ingev-chats/

“Free but unreliable”: Research on Trust in Social Media

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“Trust in Social Media” Research conducted by INGEV TAM in collaboration with Istanbul Bilgi University Faculty of Communication has been concluded. The most appropriate definition that can be attributed to social media is “free but unreliable”.

While 56% of society define social media as a “free news source”, 61% think that social media is “full of fake accounts”. The research also points to a “post-truth era” and the reality of an “echo chamber”; one third of the society trust the news on social media if it is compatible with their own opinions.

We also observe the low level of trust in media overall; those who say they trust the traditional and digital media as a source of information do not even reach 40%. However, traditional media tools are one step ahead of social media within Turkish society in terms of trust. This however mostly stems from lack of familiarity with digital tools prevalent in the lower income groups with limited internet access.

Only one out of every four people in Turkey is an “active” user in social media. The fact that the majority consists of passive users means a vocal minority sets the tone in the social media environment in Turkey. A significant majority of society uses social media to “get” and “verify” information.

To read the white paper written by Prof. Halil Nalçaoğlu.

For questions and information, please contact can.cakir@ingev.org

Gender Perceptions Research: Is it OK to Slap Women in Particular Situations?

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Even though majority in Turkey agrees that inequality of opportunity based on gender exists in the society, we run the risk of accepting it as natural. Only 29% of the society think that men and women have equal opportunities. The majority of men admit that ‘it is more difficult to be a woman in Turkey’, and ‘women face more problems than men do in social life’.

The results of the research conducted in cooperation with INGEV TAM and Istanbul Bilgi University Faculty of Communication are released. According to the research, we have come a long way towards the equality, but there is still a long way to go.

Three out of every four people in society don’t think that ‘family unity will be broken when women participate in working life’ and they say that ‘active participation of women in working life will be good for the economy’. On the contrary, about one in four men is of the opinion that ‘if the husband does not allow, a married woman should not work’. Working life is also painful for women. Women (63%3) and (54%) men agree that ‘the women face discrimination at workplace.

Vast majority of the people say they are against violence. On the other hand, there are still a considerable number of people in favor of violence against women in certain situations. Ten percent of men have the idea that ‘in some cases, a woman can be slapped by her husband’. Another critical problem for violence against women is that one out of every four men thinks ‘if a woman is smacked by her husband, she should not tell others’.

For your questions and inquiries about the report: can.cakir@ingev.org