Local Impact’s Latest Stop Was Beşiktaş

Our ‘Local Impact’ workshops continued in collaboration with Beşiktaş Municipality.

In these idea development workshops, we address critical topics to ensure the more active participation of sensitive groups and disadvantaged individuals from all segments of society in urban life.

We focused on the following three main topics in the social inclusion workshops held in Eyüpsultan, Sultanbeyli, Fatih, Sultangazi, Ataşehir, and Beşiktaş Municipalities:

  1. Identifying disadvantaged groups in the districts and determining their basic needs.
  2. The most effective or innovative supports that the municipality can offer to these groups and potential improvements in existing programs.
  3. Enhancing the impact of existing social aid and support programs for these groups and further developing cooperation with non-governmental organizations.

DISADVANTAGED GROUPS

  • Beşiktaş is the second district municipality with the oldest population in Istanbul (after Kadıköy), hence +65 and +65 living alone;
  • University students struggling with urban poverty and housing issues;
  • Families with low socio-economic status (such as those in Karanfilköy and Türkali);
  • Similar intersectional clusters (women, disabled, +65) as in every district are generally the most disadvantaged groups in Beşiktaş Municipality.

MAIN FOCUS POINTS

  • Localizing data with neighborhood-based mapping (socio-economic status can vary significantly from neighborhood to neighborhood),
  • Breaking the perception of “we are young” and developing more inclusive social policies for the +65 age group,
  • Constructing a women’s shelter,
  • Finding a solution to the dormitory problem for the high number of university students due to the presence of 9 universities within the boundaries of Beşiktaş,
  • The lack of experts among municipal staff, utilizing the technical expertise of NGOs through civil society cooperation,
  • Implementing elderly care and basic health literacy education for the +65 age group,
  • Establishing an Equality Unit that will ensure more comprehensive gender equality projects and more actively working on them.

Our workshops will continue in the coming weeks with other district municipalities in Istanbul.

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