In her weekly article, Gülseren Onanç, the Founding Chair of the SES Equality and Solidarity Association discusses feminist philanthropy and inclusive fund management in the context of Turkey’s devastating earthquake. She reviews the background of the coming parliamentary and presidential elections with the demand of protecting women’s gains and increasing their representation.
I was in Gothenburg for the last three days. I was invited to the meeting of a wonderful project that has been going on for 3 years with the contributions of the Gender and Women’s Studies Center of Excellence (SU Gender), under the leadership of Ayşe Gül Altınay. The name of the project is Resitire, its aim is to reduce gender inequality after the pandemic. The project is managed by a consortium of nine EU countries and Turkey.
The project aims for people, institutions and countries to write better stories with common sense. The project also includes stories from Turkey that have a good ending. Consortium members come together and learn from each other’s good stories and research. At the end of research and collective meetings, policy recommendations are developed and articles and books are published.
Feminist philanthropy and inclusive fund management
At Resistire they have been working on inclusive feminist funds for some time. Polish FemFund, which works with feminist principles, is an excellent example in this category. Fem Fund defines a feminist philanthropy.
They use the donations they collect from individuals and organizations to support feminist women’s projects in need. Fem Fund includes the people and institutions who apply for projects in the decision of which of the project applications will be supported. In this way, groups with different needs are aware of each other and have the opportunity to compare their needs with other needs. Magda Pochec, who attended the meeting on behalf of the Fund, says that some of the applicants, after reviewing the applications, said that others needed them more and pulled their own applications.
As SES Equality and Solidarity Association, I was invited to improve our experience, learn and share my experiences on the SES Women’s Solidarity Fund, which we want to establish. We have difficulties in enlarging the fund we established to support the needs of women in the region after the earthquake. I understood wit’s experience how it was hard for us women to collect donations. However, the country also desperately needs a women’s fund that works with feminist principles.
While trust in the state decreases, trust in civil society increases
It has been 48 days since the earthquake, but there is still no disaster management. We experienced with pity how inadequate the state institutions were in the Maraş-centered earthquake , where the death toll was said to be just over 50 thousand lives.
Most earthquake survivors, who believe that the Republic of Turkey is a strong state, experience the trauma of losing their trust in the state on top of their losses. They feel alone. Civil initiatives serving in the region are trying to alleviate this sense of loneliness.
KAMER Foundation working in an organized manner in the region, provides psychological support to women affected by the earthquake and works to heal post-earthquake traumas with its group consisting of 10 psychologists and a supervisor, within the scope of the “We Are Here” project implemented together with UN Women. Nebahat Akkoç, founding president of KAMER, says more support is needed and calls us all to duty. In particular, women volunteers play a very important role in the delivery of the aid and support for women and girls need.
The Political Islamist People’s Alliance is determined to erase women’s gains
While we are trying to heal our wounds, there are 50 days left until the 14 May presidential and parliamentary elections. Candidate applications have been completed. Let’s see how many women will take part in the new parliament.
The People’s Alliance joined arms with the Islamist parties and declared to everyone that they did not need women’s votes. However, Özlem Zengin, the AK Party group vice-president, became the voice of the women in the party base by saying “6284 is our red line”. 6284 refers to the law that regulates the measures to be taken to protect women, children, family members and stalking victims subjected to or at the risk of violence, and to prevent any violence from being directed against them. Saying that she received threats from her “neighborhood” after this statement, Özlem Zengin says, “Our neighborhood does not see that women have changed.”
Women of the conservative neighborhood who defend the Istanbul Convention
The women Özlem talks about are the daughters of parents who identify with the AK Party, who believe that the AK Party has solved the headscarf problem, and who are fans of Tayyip Erdoğan. But their choices are not limited to the freedom of their mothers’ headscarves. They defend freedom of expression and freedom of demonstration. They advocate the equality of women in all areas, the Istanbul Convention and 6284 are their red lines.
Nation Alliance should open up space for women
The Nation Alliance is an alliance of men, although one member of the table is a woman.
A high number of female candidates applied, we hope that at least 30% of women can be candidates from constituencies where they can be elected. Türkan Elçi, who became a deputy candidate as a member of the CHP last week, Ayşe Çelik, who was a candidate from the Green Left Party, and Esmeray, who was a candidate from the Workers’ Party of Turkey became the new colors of politics.
Don’t leave anyone behind
Social Policy, Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation Studies Association (SPoD) has issued a statement in the context of Presidential and parliamentary elections calling to “Leaving No One Behind!” They called out to political parties, tables and alliances: “We do not rely on you, we have our eyes on you”. We demand to start the second century of our Republic with a parliament that embraces everyone and leaves no one behind in the next election 50 days later.