A Helping Hand to Woman Entrepreneurs in the Disaster Region In the 11 provinces devastated by the earthquakes centered in Kahramanmaraş, Ege Exporters Associations, which has mobilized all its resources to the region from day one, is now extending a helping hand to woman entrepreneurs in the disaster area through its successfully-run EİB Export-Up Mentoring Program for the past three years. Ege Exporters Associations Coordinator Chairman Jak Eskinazi, stating that since the morning of 6 February they have devoted all their efforts to healing the wounds of the earthquake, continued: "Ege Exporters Associations initially received permission from our Ministry of Commerce to use 6 million lira of our resources as in-kind aid. From the very beginning until now, we have not spent a single moment without working for the earthquake. We need our women who put their shoulders to the wheel for our country's progress, for pluralism, for democracy. We at EİB are taking a pioneering role in achieving gender equality in Turkey. Because our core mission is to support sustainable development."

EİB, GAİB and EGİKAD join forces

Chairman Eskinazi stated: "In the 11 provinces of the disaster region, there are collectively-organized structures reaching hundreds of woman entrepreneurs engaged in micro-exports to foreign markets, institutionalized operations, work on geographically-indicated products, sustainable and value-added production, holding international organic certifications, and e-commerce and e-export activities. We want to grow stronger and manage the process further. For this reason, we will design the new phase of our EİB Export-Up Mentoring Program, which is a role model for Turkey, in cooperation with Southeastern Anatolia Exporters Associations (GAİB) and Aegean Business Women's Association (EGİKAD), targeting 11 woman entrepreneurs in the 11 provinces whose commercial activities have been disrupted." Describing how she mentored textile sector woman representative Gözde Destek during the first phase of the Export-Up Mentoring Project for 6 months, Eskinazi said: "Our beneficiary had been producing smart textile product groups, which had not been previously manufactured in Turkey, as a result of R&D studies for two years. During my mentoring period, I reviewed sample examples of her company during negotiation stages and contributed to the product development process. In addition to our beneficiary's work on smart textiles, following the approval of her applications for trademark registration in the US in the coming period, she will also take an active role in the US market." [caption id="attachment_150840" align="aligncenter"] Jak Eskinazi[/caption]

Our program has been writing success stories for three years

Recalling that Ege Exporters Associations signed the UN Global Compact, the world's largest sustainability initiative, for the first time among exporters associations in Turkey in 2019, Chairman Eskinazi concluded: "As the first exporters association member of Global Compact, we announced in 2022 that we are signatories to the Women's Empowerment Principles (WEPs), a joint initiative of Global Compact and UN Women. For approximately 5 years, we have been managing many processes related to gender equality and women's workforce empowerment, which is one of the priority principles of Global Compact. One of the most important of these processes is our Export-Up Mentoring Program, the first export-oriented mentoring program for women and young entrepreneurs in Turkey, which has been writing success stories for three years. We are both one of the institutions with the highest representation of women in the workforce in Turkey and one of the institutions with the highest representation of women on the Board of Directors. All our Board members actively serve in NGOs related to women's rights."  

Final application deadline 14 April

Ege Ready-Made Clothing and Confectionery Exporters Association Vice Chairman Seray Seyfeli stated: "In the first phase, the beneficiary I mentored for 6 months, Betül Buzludağ Aydemir, left corporate life and began to develop her initiative focused on textile and promotional products in 2015. Thanks to Export-Up, she is now manufacturing products for many national and international companies in Turkey and has started receiving orders from their international affiliates. In the new phase of our Export-Up Program, representatives of Izmir's business world will provide mentoring services to our 11 woman entrepreneurs in the earthquake region through training, consulting and experience-sharing to help them return to exports. Beneficiary-mentor pairings will be made in line with the activity areas and needs of our woman entrepreneurs. We will complete our application process on 14 April 2023." [caption id="attachment_151405" align="aligncenter"] Seray Seyfeli[/caption]

We want an era in which women are empowered

Seyfeli continued: "While Turkey signed 254 billion dollars worth of exports in 2022, the provinces in the earthquake region, which are important production and export centers for the country, increased their exports in 2022 by 4 percent from 19.6 billion dollars to 20.5 billion dollars. After the earthquake, the exports of the 11 provinces fell by 42 percent in February from 1.707 billion dollars to 985 million dollars, and in March fell by 20 percent from 1.997 billion dollars to 1.590 billion dollars. Our women in the earthquake region have been serving on the front lines day and night since 6 February, while trying to continue their commercial activities amid countless difficulties. We want an era in which women are empowered."  

International European Union project for women

Aegean Business Women's Association (EGİKAD) Chairman and Ege Ready-Made Clothing and Confectionery Exporters Association Board Member Şahika Aşkıner stated: "As EGİKAD, we are running two International European Union projects for women. The first is our international 'Mira - Creative Women in Labor Market' project, which EGİKAD runs jointly with Izmir University of Economics with the coordination of the Izmir Governorate, to bring creative women into business life, and we have been working on it for two years with partners from Portugal, England and Romania. In our Mira Project, we organized many pilot trainings. We provided training at Izmir University of Economics to both entrepreneurs from England, Portugal and Romania and all entrepreneurs who participated in the project from Turkey. Our other project is the DAS (Digital Age Skills) Project, which we, as EGİKAD, coordinate to help women at home learn more about digitalization and acquire digital skills, and it is proceeding successfully with our partners from Lithuania, Greece, Bulgaria and Spain." [caption id="attachment_151402" align="aligncenter"] Şahika Aşkıner[/caption] Aşkıner said: "As Aegean women, we take pride in reaching more and more woman entrepreneurs each year and increasing the number of woman entrepreneurs we support. Among our EGİKAD members, we have woman exporters with years of experience, predominantly in ready-made clothing. As both Vice Chairman of the Italian Chamber of Commerce and Industry Izmir and serving for many years in many areas including the Foreign Market Strategies Development Committee at EİB, as a businesswoman with 30 years of export experience, from the first day I was elected as Chairman of EGİKAD, I had planned a project aimed at helping woman entrepreneurs who want to start exporting to begin exporting, develop their overseas contacts, introduce them to business women's associations in different countries and enable them to conduct B2B activities. I am ready to reflect all my experience and communication network in our EİB Export-Up Mentoring project and to do everything I can for our woman entrepreneurs in the earthquake region."