What was done at Esenyurt Women’s Counseling Center in 2024?

In 2024, 12,000 women benefited from the services of Esenyurt Women’s Counseling Center.  Service recipients were Turkish and refugee women, and services were provided bilingually in Turkish and Arabic.

Women were provided with general counseling on education, health, basic needs and legal issues, referral to public institutions, accompaniment and interpretation support, and psychological counseling. In addition, activities were organized where women could have fun and receive support for their children.

 

Let’s take a look at what these services are:

Counselling Services

Many women struggle with different challenges in life. Lack of access to basic needs, health problems, and lack of educational opportunities are among the main problems women face. They also face obstacles such as violence, discrimination or not knowing their rights. Social workers informed women about their legal rights, introduced the institutions where they can receive services and explained how they can apply to these institutions. Women who do not speak Turkish or do not feel safe were also provided with accompaniment and interpretation support. We discussed solutions together on many issues such as health, education, legal procedures or combating violence.

We Discussed Violence Against Women with Men

We talked about violence, its forms and examples in our lives in the violence against women prevention workshops we implemented with men in the fight against violence against women. We discussed the situation of violence against women in Turkey and in the world and preventive legal regulations.

Psychosocial Support Activities

• Personal Psychological Support

We conducted individual and group support activities to help them cope with their problems. All these activities were conducted by psychologists. Individual psychological support sessions helped women understand their emotional needs, explore their inner world and find solutions to their problems.

• Psychosocial Support Group Workshops

Our group psychosocial support activities focus especially on the expression of emotions. In these activities, women learned why it is important to express their emotions and discovered ways to cope with the problems that may arise during this process. They were also able to express their feelings freely using creative expression methods, such as drawing pictures.

 

 

We Gathered with Women

It is important for women from different cultures to come together and get to know each other in order to reduce prejudices and build better relationships. For this reason, we organized activities with Turkish and refugee women. We told jokes; we met in knitting, sewing, embroidery and painting workshops. In these workshops, women met and chatted while learning from each other. Having women from different cultures together helped them understand each other better.

Turkish is an Important Need for Refugee Women in Many Areas of Life

For refugee women living in Turkey, knowledge of Turkish is becoming an important need in many areas of daily life. for women, knowledge of Turkish facilitates their work in many areas from grocery shopping to receiving health services and communicating with their children’s school. We support women with Turkish language courses. The courses are implemented by a teacher from the public education center. The children of the women participating in the courses were not forgotten. The children played games in the playroom, accompanied by a child development specialist. In this way, the mothers attended the classes with peace of mind, knowing that their children were safe in the next room while learning Turkish.

We Strengthen Through Collaborations and Visits

We continue to cooperate with municipalities, mukhtars’ offices, social service centers, public education centers, migrant health centers, district governorships and non-governmental organizations in Esenyurt.

In 2024, our visits both created new collaborations and supported us to improve our existing work. During our visits, we talked about the services provided at the Women’s Counseling Center and other activities of MaviKalem. We explained in detail the issues to which women can be referred to the center. At the same time, we listened to the activities of the organizations we visited and learned about the situations in which we can refer women to these organizations.

We were together with Local Civil Society Organizations: Our Mentoring Activities

In order to strengthen local civil society organizations, we organize meetings where we share knowledge and experience. These meetings are organized as part of our mentoring efforts.

In 2024, we organized information meetings and workshops on topics such as protection, monitoring and evaluation, finance, administrative processes, project management, and project management in our work with Van Association for the Hearing Impaired (VİED), Ankara Vocational Education, Culture, Arts and Tourism Association (MESEDER), and Young Approaches in Health Association.

 

Here are some of these works:

• We created a “Digital Library” for local civil society organizations to easily access information. This library includes the contents of the information meetings, MaviKalem policy documents, guidelines and basic resources.
• Women Writing Beautiful Stories ToT was organized. We organized a training for the application to reach more women. Local civil society organizations that received the training started to share this application with women in their own regions. This tool is designed to help women learn about their legal rights against violence and how and under what circumstances they can exercise these rights. The storytelling method facilitates women to share their knowledge and experiences with each other.
• We organized an information meeting on Gender-Based Violence Cases. During the meeting, case management, basic concepts and principles in combating gender-based violence were discussed. We talked with local associations about the right approaches and effective methods in the case management process.

During the information meetings and workshops we organized throughout the year, the problems encountered were discussed and solutions were developed. We continued to support local civil society organizations to make their work in the field more effective.

** The Women’s Counseling Center and Mentoring Project is supported by the “Development of Community Based Social Services for Refugees and Host Communities (CLIP 2)” implemented by the German International Cooperation Agency (GIZ).