Turkish aid agency projects support women worldwide

By Zuhal Demirci

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey carries out many significant projects to help increase women’s employment across various regions in the world through its Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TIKA).

Through a large number of projects realized in various fields in many regions of the world, TIKA promotes female employment and supports maintenance of shelters for women at risk of violence around the world, while also providing women with vocational skills courses.

The renovation of the Supreme Court building in Novi Pazar, a Muslim town in southern Serbia, and the reconstruction of the maternity ward of the Novi Pazar Hospital, the largest in the region, were organized and funded by TIKA.

Opened several months ago in a ceremony attended by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and First Lady Emine Erdogan, the maternity ward has already started to contribute to the considerable decrease in the number of infant deaths at birth.

The agency also donated critical medical equipment for pregnant women, nursing mothers, and children in eastern Ethiopia. The donations to the maternity and pediatric center included 15 different medical devices, including a modern ultrasound device as well as patient beds.

TIKA has also donated 62 pieces of office equipment to the Ethiopian Ministry of Women’s and Children’s Affairs.

Similarly, in Ivory Coast, the agency renovated the Institute of Women's Training and Employment (IFEF), an affiliate of the Ministry of Solidarity, Family, Women and Children.

In Antananarivo, the capital of the African island nation of Madagascar, a women's vocational training center renovated by TIKA was reopened in Jan. 2017 by Turkey’s first lady Emine Erdogan during President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Africa tour. TIKA also provided 20 battery-powered wheelchairs, two incubators, and medical equipment to the center.

TIKA also donated 200 bikes to the female students studying at the Holy Cross Injira Secondary School and the Lugala Secondary School in Kenya's Kakamega. The recipients live at a distance of five kilometers or more from their schools, and the bikes considerably shorten the long commute to school. It is expected that the bikes will help reduce high dropout rates, which many think stem from the poor road infrastructure.

In the Balkans, TIKA supports the establishment of market areas and small production facilities throughout Kosovo in an effort to enable unemployed women to help their families financially.

In Uzbekistan, TIKA renovated a building housing the Women's Entrepreneur Council, the country’s first female non-governmental organization that provides entrepreneurship, vocational, and management training for nearly 17,000 women annually.

Since it was founded 26 years ago, TIKA has carried out projects in a wide range of areas, such as education, health, infrastructure, and cultural heritage preservation in many regions of the world from the Balkans to the Middle East, and Africa to Latin America.