İmece İnisiyatifi Derneği (Turkey)
İmece İnisiyatifi is a registered NGO, based in Çeşme-İzmir, Turkey, which aims to support and educate displaced people in Turkish settlements. İmece İnisiyatifi stands in solidarity with the most underserved communities in its area of operation, currently carrying out food distributions in informal refugee camps, teaching essential health and language skills to refugee children, and providing training to refugee women for improved financial independence.
In 2021/2022, the Eurofins Foundation supported İmece İnisiyatifi Derneği with its “Solar Age Programme”.
This project facilitates long-term solutions to poverty and gender inequality through education, training, and professional integration through:
- Facilitating the integration of refugee women into the Turkish labour market, mainly in the field of solar energy;
- Facilitating the production of Energy for Everyone (EFE) solar power banks with torches, made by refugee women;
- Improving access to electricity in camps and on migration routes.
As a result of the Eurofins Foundation’s contribution, İmece İnisiyatifi managed to support:
- 49 displaced women through an introduction to solar engineering with 28 people completing relevent training
- A total of 80 children followed, through its "Back to school" programme;
- Local communities through the distribution of 329 EFE solar power banks on exile routes in Turkey, Bosnia and Ukraine's borders;
- 6 people to attain asylum status, - 50 people granted referrals to other organisations to access legal, psychological, or medical services.
The support from the Eurofins Foundation also facilitated the opening a wood workshop, to produce EFE solar power banks, the frames of which are made from wood.,. Thanks to this funding, Imece Initiative can now produce the power banks independently, thus drastically reducing production costs and increasing the number of items distributed.
The Eurofins Foundation is renewing its support to this project in 2022/2023.
This project contributes to the following United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals
