I strongly believe that we as business executives have obligations to our society.
In this context I have served as a rotarian for 10 years in Gayrettepe Rotary Club of Istanbul and served in this club for many social projects. I was the president of the club in 1998-99 term where I had organised vocational courses for the prisoners in the juvenile prison of Istanbul.
Apart from Rotary activities I am proud of three social responsibility projects that I have initiated:
ADAPAZARI TENT VILLAGE FOR SURVIVORS OF DEVASTATING EARTHQUAKE IN 1999:
A devastating earthquake hit North-Western Turkey on August 17, 1999, 03:02 a.m. More than 16.000 people died under the rubbles and 45.000 people were injured. In the three cities which the earthquake hit, more than 600.000 people lost their homes. After the first shock of the earthquake, the main concern was finding shelter to those homeless survivors. Many non-governmental organisations, civil groups and charities have organised campaigns to help survivors.
As the Managing Director of Perfetti Turkey I have also initiated a campaign and called our business partners to support us to help those survivors. Many of our busines partners and Perfetti Headquarters responded my call positively and in a short period of time we have collected 39.750 US $. With this fund we have decided to establish a tent village in Adapazari (one of the most severely damaged cities) with 100 tents and I have also obtained support of Gayrettepe Rotary Club and another 50 tents have been donated by them.
On August 30, 1999 under my leadership 60 volunteer employees of Perfetti went to Adapazari to construct those 150 tents on an area allocated to us by the Governorship. Each of the tents were furnished with 4 beds, blankets, pillows, and bed sheets. Water obtained from a nearby well in the area and purified with a device donated to us, and pumped to the tanks for use. A 40” container has been converted into a collective kitchen by Perfetti mechanics for the survivors living in the tent city, 6 WC’s and 3 showers provided by us and another 3 WC’s and 2 showers donated by the Rotary Club. A large tent was constructed to be used as a social club house with a TV, 50 chairs and 12 tables. Another large tent constructed by “Saving Children Organisation” used as a kinder-garden for the kids of the tent city. It has been furnished with various toys collected also as donations.
More than 30 tons of food, thousands of clothing, tons of cleaning materials like soap, detergents etc. have been distributed to the survivors living in the tent village.
650 survivors have lived in this tent village for 5 months until the winter shelters were ready.
Perfetti volunteers, building tents
BUILDING A PRIMARY SCHOOL ON AN EASTERN MOUNTAIN VILLAGE OF TURKEY
I have started a campaign among my classmates of Bogazici University in March 2010 to build a primary school in an eastern village in Turkey. I have received positive response from my classmates and we have chosen Catalipasa Village of Agri province near to the Iranian border of Turkey. This is a small village of 300 people with more than 100 primary school students. The village had an old school building with only one classroom. We have visited the village and have decided to start a campaign to build here a 3 classroom school and a teacher house. The project has been completed succesfully in October 2010. The education has started in the new building as of October 4th. You may visit our web site for details of this campaign (Turkish) : www.bogazici77.org
Location of the village in map Students in the only classroom of the old school
Old School Building New School under construction
The New School Building One of the classrooms in the new school
BUILDING THE SECOND PRIMARY SCHOOL AT AGRI AN EASTERN PROVINCE OF TURKEY
After succesfully completing the primary school at Cataipasa village of Agri. We have decided to build a larger primary school for 6th, 7th and 8th grades (village school offer until 5th grade then studentd should go to boarded schools which fammilies do not favor) at a central village serving the students of 11 villages around. This will be a 9 classroom school with 400.000 USD budget. Our aim is to complete the construction before 2011-12 education year starts. This project runs under the roof of BRM (The association of Businessmen, Industrialists and Executives Graduated from Bogazici University and Robert College) where I hold the chairmanship of social responsabilities commitee.
