A call from Ms. Güler Sabancı for society to volunteer
On the occasion of the 5th December, International Volunteer Day, the Social Sensitivity Projects Unit of Sabancı Holding and the Sabancı University organised the meeting of “We Are Volunteers for the Future” in the Sabancı Centre. The importance and potential of the concept of “volunteering” were discussed at this special event where the stories of volunteering were shared.
The opening speech of the meeting was made by Ms. Güler Sabancı, the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Sabancı Holding and Founding Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Sabancı University. The musician Haluk Levent, who participated in the meeting, told the story of Ahbap, the association founded by him, on the stage accompanied by İsmail Küçükkaya, the journalist and newsreader. The panel, moderated by Dr. Kerem Dündar was participated in by Ms. Zeynep Bahar Çelik, the Manager of the Social Sensitivity Projects Unit of the Sabancı University, Ms. Mine Ekinci, the Founder and General Coordinator of Rural Schools Exchange Network, Mr. Robin Askar, a Youth Employee and Mr. Kanber Bozan, also known as the Grocer Uncle Kanber, with his story that he took on the road to get children to take up the habit of book reading.
“A small step can make a great difference”
Ms. Güler Sabancı reminded everyone that the volunteering movement had gained outstanding strength in the last 34 years since the 5th of December was announced to be “International Volunteer Day” by the General Assembly of the United Nations.
Outlining the concept of volunteering as a matter of awareness and responsibility, Ms. Sabancı noted, “A small action taken to consider others, is a very small step we can take that will make a great difference.
What we need is only to be a “volunteer for a better future”, as we mentioned in today’s theme. I wish this will be a milestone for those who have not volunteered for anything yet”.
“The problems currently faced by the whole world are multi-layered and wide ranging. The solutions to these complicated problems are only possible if everybody tries to become a part of the solution, all stakeholders come together with participative processes and civil society becomes stronger in all areas. An effective civil society, with volunteers, is an indispensable element of a healthy democratic system.” said Ms. Güler Sabancı and added: “When we look at our country, on the other hand, I have regretfully learned that we are not at a great level when in terms of volunteering. An International Volunteering Index has been conducted in 145 countries since 2007. According to this Turkey ranks number 113 in helping anybody who is not known. When we look at the time spent volunteering, we are only ranked at 126th. The countries with the highest rank among the 145 countries are Indonesia, Liberia and Kenya…”
Emphasising that the greatest role falls to the youth in terms of volunteering, Ms. Sabancı noted, “The way for more creative solutions will be opened up if the youth are more interested in this issue, we have spare time for it and your energy is reflected towards social problems. In this way, you will give meaning to your lives, gain some experience and feel better in yourselves.”
Ms. Güler Sabancı continued her statements as follows: “Volunteering involves loving life and wishing to do good things. It is unacceptable if you don’t want, or feel, that excitement. But we can teach the youth to want this. Based on the same understanding, we designed our programmes and included Social Sensitivity Projects in our curriculum, so that young people will gain confidence in this area as well while we were founding the Sabancı University 20 years ago. This is one of the differences introduced by our University to the higher education system. This was the first! Afterwards, we made contributions to other universities in this respect. No student has graduated from our University without engaging in a social responsibility project, regardless of their high scores, since the foundation of the Sabancı University. About 15.000 students have been engaged in this process up to now. 1,245 projects were accomplished. Approximately 70,000 people were directly accessed thanks to these projects; the multiplier effect of this figure is of course much higher.”
A call to companies for “volunteering” from Sabancı
Ms. Güler Sabancı also addressed the importance of corporate volunteering activities in the generalisation of this concept. “Thanks to the awareness raised at an early age, the people who get a job take initiatives and continue to generate solutions under the same understanding when a suitable environment is created. Corporate volunteering activities provide many important opportunities and create added value both for employees and society. I invite all companies to implement corporate volunteering programmes and do a favour everywhere they can reach.” called Ms. Sabancı and added: “I am very proud to say that our Sabancı Volunteers programme, launched in 2015, is being successfully maintained thanks to the fact that it has been sincerely embraced by our employees. We have implemented 45 projects in 11 cities from the beginning. Within the scope of this programme, we provided online gender equality training to about 40,000 employees of ours. Our project, the second phase of which has just commenced is proceeding today with about 2,000 volunteers.”