INGEV CHATS Focuses on Entrepreneurship and Cooperatives
INGEV CHATS has recently held its 18th episode since March when the Covid-19 outbreak started in Turkey. INGEV CHATS Episodes in June were devoted to Entrepreneurship and Cooperatives. As INGEV CHATS episodes exceeded 1 million total views on Facebook, our guests in June were; İbrahim Elbaşı, Duygu Eren, Ozan Sönmez, Emine Erdem, Arda Sacred, Murat Şahin, Ezgi Arslan, Ayşe Sabuncu Saraçlar, Prof. Dr. Fikret Adaman, Melis Batıkan and Levent Kahraman.
INGEV CHATS will continue in July by focusing on the topics at the center of our lives. You can access the episodes (only in Turkish language) that attracted great interest and offered a new vision on their chosen topics at https://ingev.org/ingev-chats/
Refugee Entrepreneurs are More Pessimistic About the Future
Refugee entrepreneurs are more affected by the COVID-19 pandemic than their Turkish counterparts and are more pessimistic about the future.
INGEV TAM’s “Understanding Local and Refugee Entrepreneurs and Their Needs in the COVID-19 Outbreak and Normalization Process” research study indicates that revenues of refugee entrepreneurs are more negatively affected by the pandemic than local entrepreneurs and they are more pessimistic about the future. Another important finding is that during this period, as the distancing measures inevitably brought digitalization to the center stage of our lives, Syrian entrepreneurs needed consultancy and financial support in order to adapt and keep up in an environment where online transactions and communications became vital. In addition, half of the Syrian entrepreneurs are unaware of the support and aid mechanisms provided to SMEs by the government.
Click for Press Release. (Only in Turkish)
Summary of the Research Click for “One-Pager”.
Barrier to Cohesion: Disinformation
Turkish people are so misinformed about Syrians living in Turkey that the biggest obstacle to social harmony among the two communities can be said to be disinformation.
The Human Development Monitor Survey conducted by INGEV TAM in collaboration with Istanbul Bilgi University Faculty of Communication revealed that local community members possess quite a bit of misinformation about the humanitarian aid provided to Syrians in Turkey.
The research revealed that local community members are better informed when it comes to issues related to daily life such as health care and payments of bills. A majority of the population, however, is under the impression that refugees get special treatment on topics such cash transfers by the Turkish government, reduced taxes, easier access to education and fast-tracked citizenship rights.
Half of the local community thinks that the most tense social relationship in Turkey today is the one between Turkish people and Syrians. Nearly half of the local community members say they do not want their children to be friends with refugees. This tension felt by the members of society seems to stem from pieces of disinformation prevalent in the society in relation to humanitarian aid provided to Syrians.
Click to access the press release. (Only in Turkish)
Click for the detailed research report.
Click for the summary findings of the research.
“Checklist With Renan” Provides Entrepreneurs with Practical Tips And Clues
INGEV added a new service to its entrepreneurial support mechanisms. “Checklist with Renan” sketches out the critical aspects and topics that entrepreneurs should pay attention to in order to effectively deal with the ups and downs in the life of an entrepreneur. Prepared by Renan Burduroğlu, the training is in Turkish and presented with Arabic subtitles. You can access the 8-video series free of charge at https://ingev.org/renanla-checklist/
The topics of “Checklist with Renan” include:
Ideation, creating a business plan, pricing strategies, market-target audience analysis, sales-distribution, creating a marketing plan, brand positioning and marketing communication.
Making a Difference with Impactful Mentorship
We came to the end of the first year in our business mentoring project funded by EBRD. The aim of the project was to enhance business development capacity of Syrian entrepreneurs. In this process, entrepreneurs had the opportunity to strengthen their networking capabilities as they interacted with new network connections from public- private sectors, sectoral associations, private enterprises.
The first year’s closing meeting in June was held with a very strong participation. In the meeting attended by an international team of 40 executives from the EBRD, the project mentors and mentees shared their experiences gathered throughout the mentorship process. All mentees have remained in the project from kick-off in July 2019 to the end of implementation period in December 2019 and very high percentages of satisfaction have been achieved in relation to the target KPIs in the project.
Fast Information Service from INGEV to Refugee SMEs
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.
Vural Cakir Pens His Entrepreneurship Experiences
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:
Digitalization Assistance for Refugee Entrepreneurs from İNGEV GDM
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.
Towards Job Matching for Our Disabled Beneficiaries
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.
