"Connected Women" Yielded 5 million TRY of Social Value in one year

Launched in collaboration with the Ministry of National Education Directorate General of Life Long Learning and Vodafone Turkey Foundation, the "Connected Women" project continues to increase the inclusion of women in economic and social life. The project provided Digital Literacy and Digital Marketing training to over 5,000 women in a year. While 5 million TRY of social value was achieved in this process, each investment of 1 TRY for the project yielded a social return of 5 TRY. The project aims to train 12,000 women in 20 provinces by the end of 2022.

Implemented to contribute to our society's digitalization, support women's development, and increase their inclusion in the workforce, the "Connected Women" project celebrates its second year. With the project, implemented in collaboration with the Ministry of National Education Directorate General of Life Long Learning and Vodafone Turkey Foundation, over 5,000 women from 13 provinces received Digital Literacy and Digital Marketing training by 140 trainers last year. According to the report prepared to evaluate the project's social impact, a social value of 5 million TRY was achieved in 1 year with the project training. Thus, each investment of 1 TRY for the project yielded a social return of 5 TRY. While Digital Marketing trainees generated 58% of this value, the remaining 42% was obtained from Digital Literacy trainees. The project aims to train 12,000 women in 20 provinces by the end of 2022.

The "Connect Women" project's 2020-2021 social impact report and further goals were shared at the press conference held in Kağıthane Public Education Center, with the participation of Mr. Sabahattin Dülger, the General Director of the Ministry of National Education Directorate General of Life Long Learning, Mr. Hasan Süel, the Chair of Vodafone Turkey Foundation , and Seda Kuş and Nurcihan Baltacı, "Connected Women" project's trainees.

Mr. Sabahattin Dülger, the General Director of the Ministry of National Education Directorate General of Life Long Learning , stated:

"With the mission of providing guidance service to everyone, anytime, anywhere while transforming into a learning society, helping individuals take responsibility for the development of humanity by developing their competencies, and providing documentable and monitorable, high-quality training, Our Directorate General of Life Long Learning performs common-public education activities with over 3,700 courses. As the Directorate General, we also conduct various projects with our social partners to help our trainees enhance professionally, socially, and culturally and bring them to an employable level. Among the successful examples of the cooperation of the public and private industries, the 'Connected Women', launched in collaboration with the Vodafone Turkey Foundation to bring the power of technology to the potential of women, is one of these projects. As part of the project, we improved the basic computer skills of women with our Digital Literacy training while contributing to their professional development in the digital field with our Digital Marketing training. In the first year of the project, we provided training to over 5,000 women in 13 provinces with our 140 trainers. Besides providing the training opportunity with the project, we also organized competitions for our trainers and woman trainees. With the Digital Literacy Competition held among our trainers, we divided our 13 provinces into three categories based on the population density, rewarding our trainers who trained the most trainees. Samsun İlkadım Public Education Center in the first category, Ankara Keçiören Public Education Center in the second category, and Sivas Public Education Center in the third category won the first place. Moreover, we held a Social Media Campaign Competition among women who completed our 'Digital Marketing' training and gave 21 of our trainees who passed the pre-selection among 82 women an assignment to manage the social media accounts of a small business of their choice for one month. Then, the jury evaluated the projects of our trainees, awarding the top 5 women. In the next period of our project, we will resume our efforts to provide training to more women and promote their participation in the labour force in 20 provinces by including new ones in the project. Also, we would like to thank our dear stakeholders with whom we implemented the project."

Also, Mr. Hasan Süel, the Chair of Vodafone Turkey Foundation , stated:

"As a purpose-driven company, we aim to touch the lives of 1 billion people worldwide by 2025 and halve the ecological impact of our operations. Inclusivity is among the elements of the roadmap we have defined to achieve this goal. We are working to ensure that the digital future includes people from all social strata, especially women and youth. With this vision, we launched the 'Connected Women' project. Our goal is to improve the digital competencies of women and ensure their inclusion in economic and social life. Last year, we gradually implemented this project in 13 provinces and reached over 5,000 women. As a result, we employed 43 women who completed our training within Vodafone Customer Services. During this process, we also held a Social Media Competition. Held among our trainees who joined Digital Marketing training, the competition accepted 82 applications. We also prepared our project's first social impact report. According to this report, our project increases women's digital knowledge and skills while playing a significant role in helping them boost their self-confidence and motivation, gain awareness of the importance of the digital world, and develop supportive relationships. Moreover, we successfully reached 5 TRY for every 1 TRY investment we made in the project. For the next period of our project, we aim to increase the number of provinces from 13 to 20. Our goal is to reach 12,000 women. Digitalization of women means a future-ready society. Thus, we would like to thank the Ministry of National Education Directorate General of Life Long Learning again for their valuable collaboration."

Project participants shared their experiences

After the opening statements, the participants of the "Connected Women" project enjoyed a short conversation. In the session moderated by Mr. Hasan Süel, the Chair of Vodafone Turkey Foundation, Seda Kuş and Nurcihan Baltacı, the project participants, took part as speakers. The speakers shared insights regarding the changes that the "Connected Women" project created in their lives, as well as their plans for the future. After this session, classes were visited.