Newsletter / January 2023 / As 2022 ends…

*The quantitative data in the article does not cover December 2022.

We have come to the end of a busy year. 2022 has been a pleasant period in which we returned to our offices and face-to-face work a little more after the Covid-19 pandemic.

This year, we provided consultancy to 8,344 people through the Mavi Kalem Consultation Line.

Our face-to-face psychosocial activities and information dissemination meetings with women have increased. We organized activities with 239 women to support their mental health; we held information meetins with more than 1.130 women on issues such as violence against women, mother-child relationship and women’s health.

We provided individual psychological counseling to 402 women.

We conducted a counseling and referral process with 1800 women so that they could access different information and services for their needs.

We made a project where we talked about the legal rights of women against violence and how and under what conditions we can use them. In the Women Write Beautiful Stories project, we developed a set of methods and materials that facilitate the transfer of information from woman to woman. 53 women attended the training and became able to apply the method we developed. We participated in their implementations personally or supported them remotely, collecting feedback from practitioners and women, and on how many women benefited.

We worked with 123 volunteer women in the Women’s Consultation Center and Mentoring Project for Local NGOs. We met with volunteers every week on issues such as disseminating the work of Mavi Kalem and the Women’s Consultation Center and developing their knowledge and skills.

We carried out the ‘Children’s Rights and Respect for Differences’ event with children throughout the year. 365 children participated in this informative activity based on experience about peer bullying. 300 women participated in the information activities we held on child protection.

Our activities aimed at supporting children’s social and artistic skills continued. They gave a huge concert at the end of a year of study where they learned to play the melodica.

During 2022, we provided individual psychological counseling to 304 children and their families.

We carried out a counseling and guidance process with 934 children so that they can access different information and services for their needs.

We held meetings with men where we aimed to raise information and awareness about gender-based violence. 83 men attended these meetings throughout 2022. This year, we also started to re-implement the Male Participation for Women’s Empowerment Workshop Series. We started to develop and implement the workshop series in 2019, but we took a break due to the pandemic. In 2022, we implemented the workshop series with four different groups of men.

We continued the practitioner training of the Male Participation for Women’s Empowerment Workshop Series and the Girls’ Empowerment Program. In this way, 64 more people started to spread these applications among the groups they work with. This year, we conducted a supervision study with people who had previously received practitioner training.

While our face-to-face work increased, we did not leave digital work aside. We continued to review our experiences in the digital field and to improve ourselves. We especially wanted to evaluate how women’s studies are affected by digital tools and methods, and we organized the ‘Digitalization in Women’s Studies Workshop’. We discussed the topics of what kind of digital methods are developed by public institutions and non-governmental organizations working with women under the conditions of the Covid-19 pandemic; the compatibility of these methods with the needs, participation and conditions of women; how women’s studies is positively or negatively affected by this process, and whether there are permanent digital methods.

Family Man, the first mobile phone game for men by a non-governmental organization that we developed and popularized in 2021, met with 1,783 new players throughout 2022. We held meetings to listen closely how the men found the game, and we received feedback that pleased and improved us.

This year, we developed and launched another mobile phone application: Women’s Neighborhood. We have developed this application so that women can easily access reliable information on legal rights, women’s and children’s health. The Women’s Neighborhood was extended in the events we met with women and from woman to woman throughout the year, reaching 514 women.

In 2022, we also continued to share our corporate experience in topics/areas of our expertise, such as child protection and gender equality approach, with other organizations.

As we finish this year, we are preparing for new projects that we will start to implement in 2023. We are excitedly welcoming another year in which we will learn from each other and get stronger together, spend joyful and productive times together.