Issue: 114
Argande’s 2015 Spring/Summer collection, which was created within the “Innovations for Women’s Empowerment in Southeast Anatolia” project implemented by GAP Regional Development Administration in partnership with UNDP with the financial support of Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, was prepared by two renowned and successful designers in Turkey, Rojin Aslı Polat and Belma Özdemir under Hatice Gökçe’s coordination.
Two designers created a collection that bears impressive traces from the Göbeklitepe’s magnificence where the human history was rewritten. The designs were manufactured by the women, working in Argande’s atelier in Kilis.
Rojin Aslı Polat focused on the 12 thousand year old secrets of Göbeklitepe in her designs, entitled as ‘one single tree, one single wish tree’. Polat summarizes her designs as: “One single tree, one single wish tree… With an ancient wisdom and colorful hopes tied to its leaves and branches straightly salutes us. It stands alone as if it marks something in Göbeklitepe. It seems that it has been keeping 12 thousand year old secrets of life in the land surrounded strongly by the Fırat and Dicle rivers. Hunters and gatherers of that century were not satisfied with a modest and simple life as we thought; on the contrary, we can see indications of how elegantly they lived when we look from today.”
On the other hand, Belma Özdemir regenerated Argande through using symbolic explanations of Göbeklitepe that has been one of the first temples on earth. These traces changing the human history in Göbeklitepe had been an inspiration to Rojin Aslı Polat and Belma Özdemir for the Argande collection.
Göbeklitepe was put on the UNESCO World Heritage Tentative List recently.
Photo shooting for the collection which embodies the magnificence and secrets of Göbeklitepe was done in Göbeklitepe by famous photographer Jerry Stolwijk, in which Sema Şimşek presented the collection.
Argande’s 2015 Spring/Summer collection can be reached from Mudo stores* and www.mudo.com.tr.
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*Argande products are available in Mudo stores, which are listed below:
İstanbul: Akbatı Mudo City, Akmerkez Mudo City, Carousel Mudo City, Cevahir Mudo City, Göztepe Optimum Mudo City, İçerenköy Carrefour Mudo City, İstinye Park Mudo City, Maltepe Carrefour Mudo City, Nişantaşı Mudo Store
Ankara: Ankamall Mudo City, Panora Mudo City
Bursa: Korupark Mudo City
İzmir: Agora Mudo City
Muğla: Bodrum Midtown Mudo City
Mersin: Mersin Forum Mudo City
Mudo internet sitesi: www.mudo.com.tr
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About Argande:
Argande is the beautiful goddess of the Kingdom of Commagene, who in the ancient times, ruled the territory of Mesopotamia. Her name has been resuscitated today by the Southeastern women of Turkey. “Innovations for Women’s Empowerment in the GAP Region” gathers its products under the Argande brand in a joint project launched in May 2008 by the GAP Regional Development Administration and the UNDP with financing from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency to socially and economically empower women. The project supports women’s participation in labour markets, re-branding of Southeast Anatolia, and creation of innovative sales and marketing opportunities.
In the emergence of Argande brand, all institutions and individuals gave their volunteer support with s sense of social responsibility. One of Turkey’s biggest and most innovative retail companies MUDO has established sale stands for Argande products in their most important 20 stores. In the creation process of Argande brand, Mudo who worked in coordination with the project team, present the collection – prepared by the famous designers under the name of this non-profit project – in specially designed sections and showcases. Mudo contributes to provide a sustainable resource for Southeast Anatolian women who work in the Argande ateliers. Demir Tasarım has volunteered to prepare printed and visual documents for the emergence of Argande brand. ITKIB provided training support in the ateliers established in Batman and Mardin Ömerli ÇATOM for the production of collection. Bilge Tuğsuz has been the advisor for brand view and artistic working during the catalogue shooting and Ahu Yağtu, Beril Kayar and lastly Sema Şimşek have been the face of the brand. Gencer Beybek, Tamer Yılmaz and Jerry Stolwijk has been the photographer of the collection. In the design coordination of Hatice Gökçe, more than the best 20 fashion designers in Turkey have given volunteer support to the ARGANDE project.
‘Future is in Tourism’ project started in 2007 with the partnership of Anadolu Efes, Ministry of Culture and Tourism and UNDP and it will support three more projects this year, which will contribute to sustainable tourism.
The applications for ‘Future is in Tourism Sustainable Tourism Support Fund’ which aims to increase the number of best examples in the field of sustainable tourism through cooperation of local tourism actors and civil society organizations with public and private institutions, are accepted between 12 May-3 July. In addition to support fund given to the projects, implementation support, such as training, communication and mentoring are also provided within the scope of the fund.
440 projects from 74 cities applied in 2012 and 2013
On the first year of the project, ‘%100 Misia’ project’, ‘Creating Women- Led Sustainable Tourism Initiatives in Mardin’ project and ‘Traditional Kitchen of Seferihisar’ project were supported. In the second period, ‘Stonemasonry at Göbeklitepe, the Oldest Temple of the World’, ‘Malatya’s Legacy, Arslantepe’ and ‘A Souvenir from Safranbolu’ were selected to support.
‘Future is in Tourism’ started in 2007 with the Eastern Anatolia Tourism Development Project
Eastern Anatolia Development Project (TDEAP) in 2007 were implemented with the partnership of Anadolu Efes, Ministry of Culture and Tourism and UNDP. Within the scope of the project, more than 20 family hostels were opened and three non-governmental organizations – one of them is a women association – were founded to support tourism in Uzundere district of Erzurum. In addition to local festivals like bird watching, sport activities like photography, trekking, mountain biking, camping, picnic, canoe, sail, oarsmanship and water-skiing were organized. With the project, the region gained more traction from local and foreign tourists. The district of Uzundere was called as the Tourism Center with the decision of the Council of Ministers in October 2013. Moreover, within the scope of the project, 5000 people in 27 cities were given trainings on tourism by Bogazici University in the years of 2007-2012. As a result of trainings, a number of local associations were supported to be founded.
10 cities… Non-Governmental Organizations… Local Administrations Meeting
It is important for the projects which are going to be submitted to establish partnerships between private sector, public institutions and NGOs. In this respect, it was aimed to increase the quality of applications for the next period with the Capacity Building Seminars organized in different cities of Turkey. 505 people were given training about sustainable tourism and project writing techniques in 10 cities where NGOs were also participated.
‘World is Yours’ blog is live…
‘World is Yours’ blog, the new digital platform of ‘Future in Tourism’, has become live. In this blog, six renowned bloggers like Refika Birgul, Billur Saatci, Styleboom, Engin Kaban, Altug Galip and Onder Koca led by Saffet Emre Tonguc visit sustainable tourism projects that bring local cultures in different regions of Turkey in the foreground and then they write about the beauties they saw, the local areas they visited, the history they touched as well the sustainable tourism and being a responsible tourist.
You can visit www.gelecekturizmde.com for detailed information about the applications to ‘Sustainable Tourism Support Fund’ and the evaluation process.
The winning projects and institutions of the 14th Golden Compass Awards were announced on the evening of 25 May in İstanbul.
Marcos Neto, UNDP Bureau for Policy and Programme Support, Private Sector and Foundations Team Manager, has presented the award to the winning project team during the ceremony where parliament members, governors and mayors, jury members, representatives of the public and private sector, professionals on public relations, media members, academicians, and young communication experts were attended.
Women’s empowerment and employment
“Women First in Soma: Training and Production Center” project, which received the UNDP’s special prize, creates an entrepreneurship initiative which can be shown as an example to the concept of inclusive business model.
The project appraises its highly meaningful efforts on women’s empowerment, vocational training and creation of jobs.
Please click here to learn more about the project.
It describes UNDP’s approach to innovation, highlights innovative practices and spotlights all 49 initiatives funded by the Innovation Facility across 54 countries. In 2014 UNDP launched the Innovation Facility to support and leverage innovation to address increasingly complex development challenges. The Innovation Facility was made possible with the generous contribution of the Government of Denmark and co-investments from UNDP’s core resources.
UNDP has invested in advancing innovation, noted UNDP Administrator Helen Clark, “… to ‘disrupt’ business as usual, encourage change in the search for ever greater effectiveness, and identify new ways of doing things which could be of wide benefit.” With over five decades of experience in innovating solutions for development, in 2013 UNDP began strategically exploring innovation under the motto “innovation happens in practice”. Now, through the Innovation Facility UNDP strives to further accelerate this by putting innovation in development solutions on a new trajectory.
Innovation for development promotes calculated risk-taking.
The Innovation Facility has funded problem-solving in challenging contexts – from the Ebola health emergency in West Africa, to co-designing citizen feedback loops for more responsive Governments in Bangladesh, the Maldives and Papua New Guinea. Over 60 per cent of the countries supported by the Innovation Facility are developing or crisis-affected countries -- from Small Island Developing States (SIDS), to situations on the Security Council’s Agenda
Speaking on innovative approaches to programme design and implementation, Ms. Clark said, “Today’s development challenges are complex and interconnected. We live in a world of volatility, uncertainty, and unpredictability… it calls for innovative approaches to development which employ the whole range of new technologies and media to improve service delivery and engage citizens.”
The 2014 Review also identifies key lessons that the Innovation Facility is applying to its programme support in 2015. They include ensuring that new initiatives incorporate scaling pathways from inception; co-designing with more vulnerable populations in ‘hard-to-reach’ areas; and mainstreaming ‘Open Innovation Challenges’ as a new corporate policy.
The Innovation Facility report finds that it was only together with entrepreneurial partners and by engaging people affected by development challenges that UNDP can find the next generation of catalytic solutions and reach the targets of the Post-2015 agenda.
Learn more about the Innovation Facility at http://undp.org/innovation and connect to a larger network of experts on Teamworks. Follow @UNDP_innovation and join the #inno4dev conversation. Have questions? Reach out to us at innovator.support@undp.org.
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Future is in Tourism was deemed worthy of bronz medal in the categories of “Europe’s Best Social Responsibility Project” and “The Best Public Relations Project in Community Relations” at The Stevie Awards, 11th International Business Awards in 2014.
In addition to these, Future is in Tourism became the single project to represent Turkey in the Skills for Jobs Impact Map led by CSR Europe.
“Strengthening the Institutional Capacity of Ombudsman Institution Project” was developed by the Ombudsman Institution together with UNDP.
The launch event took place on 4 May 2015 at TBMM Ceremonial Hall with the opening speeches of Cemil Çiçek, Speaker of Turkish Grand National Assembly, M. Nihat Ömeroğlu, Chief Ombudsman, Kamal Malhotra, UNDP Resident Representative in Turkey and Lars Wahlund, Ambassador of Sweden.
Kamal Malhotra, UNDP Resident Representative in Turkey, underlined that UNDP seeks to place human beings and human rights at the center of its work. He further stated that ‘While responding to the operational needs of the Ombudsman Institution, this project will promote the adoption of an active and systemic approach to human rights issues.”
The project is financed by Swedish International Development Cooperation (SIDA) and aims to support the Ombudsman Institution to perform its duties within international standards through strengthening capacity of the Ombudsman Institution.
Raising awareness about the duties and operation of the institution via participation of related stakeholders and public relations activities is also among the targets of the project.
3rd Sustainable Brands Conference Istanbul was organized in 26-27 May with a topic of “How Now” and a session on “How Brands Create Effective Stakeholder Engagement: Future Lies in Tourism” was arranged with the moderation of Prof. Dr. Tamer Atabarut, Boğaziçi University.
The speakers of this session were Didem Şuşoğlu, Culture and Tourism Expert of Ministry of Culture and Tourism General Directorate of Investment and Enterprises; Simge Balaban, Corporate Communications Manager, Anadolu Efes and Bülent Açıkgöz, Local Economic Development Cluster Lead, UNDP Turkey.
Simge Balaban, Corporate Communications Manager of Anadolu Efes stated that Future Lies in Tourism Project supports the local development through creating sustainable tourism models and she underlined the importance of strong partnerships in terms of sustainability of community based projects.
Balaban said; “One of the reason why Future Lies in Tourism project is internalized by all our stakeholders and become one of the remarkable tourism model is our 8 years long partnership with Ministry of Culture and Tourism and UNDP.”
Didem Şuşoğlu, Culture and Tourism Expert of Ministry of Culture and Tourism General Directorate of Investment and Enterprises stated that; “Tourism is a very important and an effective area in terms of Turkey’s sustainable growth. Community based tourism projects are the top priority working areas of our ministry. In this context we think that it is crucial to contribute to local development and social improvement and raising awareness on these issues through Future Lies in Tourism.
“A project which rises together with community, not despite to community” says UNDP
Bülent Açıkgöz emphasized that the need for alternative development tools in Turkey today raises the importance of tourism entrepreneurship in regional development.
He said; “The philosophy of Future Lies in Tourism is work together with the community, not despite to the community. Community based tourism approach is rapidly improving and becoming widespread. Future Lies in Tourism is an ideal model for private sector, public, NGO partnership and it plays a great role in developing community based tourism implementations in our country.”
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Editor: Faik Uyanık
Assistant: Nazife Ece
Intern: Elif Yılmaz
Contributors to this issue: Deniz Tapan, Gönül Sulargil, Seher Alacacı
© 2014 UNDP Turkey
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