Last year, Turkish Soroptimists stood united to make access to justice just. The ‘EASILY’ programme was launched in September 2022 – because of its sheer scale and wider reach, its impact extended far beyond the hundreds of women who participated directly.
The EASILY Project, funded by the Council of Europe, was launched with the goal of contributing to the prevention of active and passive violations of women’s rights. It focused extensively on women’s human rights, gender-based violence, family law, and women’s economic rights.
Easily project launched on September 7, in Mersin.
The project reached out to more than 800 disadvantaged women and girls with limited resources, living in high-priority areas.
Soroptimists of Türkiye developed four live interactive training and consulting sessions to raise women’s legal literacy and to inform them about available legal aid and judicial support channels. Across Türkiye 27 clubs and four SI Türkiye community centres delivered 65 face-to-face training sessions. The safe and friendly learning environment, and the use of arts and crafts through gamification techniques helped participants develop a deeper understanding of complex concepts related to law, justice, rights, violence, divorce, and alimony. The handicrafts brought benefits on multiple levels, acting not only icebreakers but as an expression of participants’ thoughts and beliefs about the themes – in addition, they were displayed at an exhibition in Istanbul at the end of the project.
“An overwhelming number of women and girls received legal advice from our lawyer Soroptimist sisters at the end of each session, and some of them immediately took their cases to court.”
An awareness-raising social media campaign was launched to promote women’s human rights. It used simple and sincere language to help build legal literacy and provided guidance on women’s access to justice. A total of 76 posts and 20 videos were shared through social network services as part of a highly engaging campaign that drove more than 400,000 individual visits and generated over 800,000 interactions.
The project was concluded at SI Türkiye’s Headquarters in Istanbul, where an exhibition was held 5-30 November 2022. Soroptimists displayed the art and crafts generated by participants of the programme and illustrated how the project reached and exceeded its overall goal and objectives thanks to the outstanding efforts of everyone involved.
Thousands of pieces of handcrafts were exhibited in Istanbul. From right to left: beads for Life Necklaces, Safety Blanket, Loops of Divorce Cover and Livelihood Journals.
Let’s unite for women and girls in Türkiye. Donate to Soroptimist International of Europe Disaster Recovery Fund to help Soroptimists support victims of the earthquakes in Türkiye.
