Fortunate to be Feminine

Name: Ayca Atabey, Miray Atesoglu, Ozge Armutcu
Committee: Gender Issues

Specific Issue: Informing high school students about women rights and the support they can get in an act of abuse

Background Issue:
In Turkey, many women face physical, psychological and sexual abuse. Although this problem is lessened with the modernized world of the main cities, it still continues in the less developed eastern/anatolian parts of Turkey. In fact, women are afraid of their husbands/other family members in an act of rebellion. Therefore they first need to get to know their rights and against an act of abuse, they need to know what to do. With this project, we would like to show these women that they have rights and if they face any problems there are organizations and institutes that will help them through protection and accomodation.

Title of the Project: Fortunate to be feminine

Outline of the Project:
Prepare and distribute flyers and posters around schools
Group of minimum 20 people(students) will be formed
Organization of articles, interviews etc. for the magazine which is about women’ s rights
Distribution of magazines to the Eastern parts of Turkey

Aim:
Our aim is to inform women about their rights and make them realize that they can be supported in a situation of sexual/physical/psychological abuse

Indicators of Success:
If thenumber schools that we distribute the magazines to is high enough, then we’ ll hope that they will reach girls in high schools.

Target Audience:
Girls age of 14-18
Magazines willl be distributed to the local high schools with the permission of Ministery of Education

Scope:
Flyers and posters will be distributed in 6 different schools ( Robert College, Uskudar American College, Koc High School, Koc University, Galatasaray University and Bogazici University). Then 3-5 people from each school will come together and form a group to form the magazine. The support of professors can be asked during this process. Magazines will be distributed to the high schools in cities such as Gaziantep, Sanliurfa, Hatay and Tunceli.

Duration:
The magazines will be sent to the high schools in late May/early June. If this project is completed successfully, then a trip to Anatolia will be organized to inform housewives and uneducated women by reading the magazine to them and listening / trying to solve their problems.

Resources:
Ministery of Education
Companies which are involved in women rights and women’s education
Publishers( such as local publishers in Istanbul)
School clubs ( especially in universities)

Costs:
50 € for 250 posters
120€ for 1000 flyers
Publishing magazines (probably will be sponsored)

Delegation of Tasks/involvement of others:
6 schools: Robert College, Uskudar American College, Koc High School, Koc University, Galatasaray University and Bogazici University- 3-6 students from each school to gather articles and interviews
Posters/ flyers: distributed in the schools beforehand to raise awareness and to get participants

Development:
If this project becomes successful, we will implement the concept of women rights to another target audience such as housewives

Feasibility:
We can manage it. (Live your dream!)

Timeline/ Critical Path:
FEBRUARY
8 - informing Ribert College and Koc University about the project
15 - preparing posters and flyers
22 - distribution of posters and flyers- will continue at most 3 weeks

MARCH
1 - arranging resources
8 - sponsors + resources/ visiting the high schools introducing the project
15 - as a group we will make the outline of magazine- 2 weeks
22 - continuation of the previous week
29 - getting permission / deciding the local high schools that we'll send the magazines to

APRIL
5 - developing magazines
12 - developing magazines
19 - arranging publisher/ sending the softcopy to the ministery of education
26 - printing the magazines

MAY
3 - arranging transportation/cargo
10 - informing the high schools for the arrivals of the cargo packages
17 - sending the magazines
24 - success of the project!!!


Risk analysis
Qualitative- main risks:
There might be girls that cannot go to the high school because of the lack of support from their parents. Therefore we cannot reach them through our magazine project.
Quantitive- measurements of uncertainty and probability:
The ministry of education’s permission may not be provided.


Risk Management
Responses to the main risk:
This could be handled, if we succeed the project and manage to apply our second idea- which is to organize a trip to these cities, where we’ll create an environment to inform women and interact with them. So that we can go and talk to the girls, who are unable to go to school.

Contingency:
Our resources will help us through the permission related to Ministery of Education.