International Women’s Day (March 8), which has been celebrated for more than a century, is a day when women’s achievements in social, economic, cultural and political fields are celebrated every year. It also refers to the call for a movement towards gender equality.
The socioeconomic empowerment of women and gender equality has always been one of the main objectives of the projects implemented by RET in cooperation with its local implementing partner LEAP Turkiye. Empowering women has great importance in increasing economic growth, enhancing business productivity, and maintaining social cohesion and social justice.
Our “My Life Community Center” team, which was established in Kayseri as part of the “Multi-sectoral Approach for Fostering Resilience among Non-Syrian Refugee and Vulnerable Host Communities” project, came together with women from host and refugee communities within the framework of the International Women’s Day. They organised an awareness-raising session on the socio-economic empowerment of women and gender equality. The participating women in the session wrote messages they wanted to convey about the meaning and importance of the day on a piece of paper and posted them on the board.
As it is known, Turkiye had one of the biggest natural disasters in its history last month when it was struck by two massive earthquakes. Since day one of the disasters, we have been working with our women participants in the field through workshops to help heal the wounds of the earthquake. The women producers of the “Leap Women’s Entrepreneurship, Production and Management Co-operative”, established within RET’s “Women’s Socio-Economic Empowerment Program”, turned to work and produce in behalf of earthquake victims. The dignity kits and food items packages prepared were delivered to the people affected by the earthquake through local institutions and organisations.
Since our inception, we have emphasised the importance of women’s role in social development and worked on the empowerment of women. We want to thank all the women we have worked with, supported and stood by us in our work. As we have done so far, we will continue to stand by women, youth and children affected by crises in the future.