Our Chosen Charity
March 2011
Students rewrite their future, thanks to the support of Oriflame Turkey.
Sponsored students
The right to an education is taken for granted in many countries across Europe, but for thousands of youngsters, their daily lives are spent away from the classroom. Luckily, there are organisations that believe each child has the right to learn – enterprises in countries like Turkey, where poor families are being given opportunities that can change their futures. Annie Roberts reports on this initiative for DSNE.
An ID card issued to a 12-year-old girl living in a poverty-stricken village in Turkey may seem an insignificant gesture. But for the girl, the official document changed her life. For the first time it confirmed she had rights in her society – rights to receive an education. The 12-year-old is just one of the girls who have been able to change their lives through a charity project and pursue a secondary education.
Oriflame, which has 400,000 Sales Consultants in Turkey, is one company showing how an ongoing commitment can make the difference. The cosmetics company set up the project Contemporary Girls of Oriflame in partnership with the Association in Support of Contemporary Living (ASCL).
The Turkish-based organisation is a non-governmental, not-for-profit initiative and has supported thousands of girls undertaking secondary education. This is remarkable, considering that although obligatory education is eight years, the average time girls attend school is five years. Unsurprisingly, the level of inadequate education among girls is high – figures from the Turkish government’s Ministry of Education reveal it at 13.9 per cent, yet it’s 3 per cent for boys.
Ebru Erkan, Marketing Director for Oriflame in Turkey, said: “The project is due to end in 2012, when 500 girls will graduate from the secondary school. It will be a momentous occasion. Since 2005 Oriflame Turkey has made an annual donation of 827.155 euros to the project, enabling the 500 privileged girls to seize an opportunity that is like a dream for so many thousands of girls in the country.”
Ebru went on to explain: “ASCL seeks to protect and develop the reforms and principles of our country’s first president, Kemal Atatürk, the founder of modern Turkey, by attaining a contemporary society through the pursuit of education. Every year there are young girls unable to take advantage of secondary education. This missed opportunity for education means they are unable to use such experience to help improve the way they raise future generations.
“We have very poor families who can’t afford to raise their daughters. With this project our aim is to promote education and support these young girls through their education so they can equip themselves well enough to stand on their own two feet. The 500 girls are from rural areas of Mardin and Şanlıurfa provinces, located in the eastern part of Turkey, where most of the people are poor, unemployed or not educated at all.”
Ebru added: “We believe that education gives people the tools and skills to change their lives for the better and turn their dreams into reality. Locally, we’ve been running this project with the cooperation of the Association in Support of Contemporary Living for six years; it has not changed much during the years. We are keeping our commitment to support the girls’ education and increasing the amount we are donating parallel with inflation every year.”
Oriflame’s commitment is welcome news for the ASCL, which since its launch in 1989 has developed 40 educational projects, giving opportunities to more than 85,000 female students in 81 cities. The young women are given scholarships to enable them to attend elementary and intermediate schools, with the possibility of going on to university.The Association’s work is in partnership with the Ministry of Education, city, district and provincial leaders, local branches of the Ministry of Education, and school principals, and it has the financial support of individuals and corporations such as Oriflame. Dr Aysel Çelikel, the Association’s President, said: “The aim is to attain a progressive society through equal participation in education and to contribute to the development of democracy by expansion of human rights and freedoms. We have been able to reach children, youths, women, students and teachers – in short, all levels of the society across Turkey – with our projects developed and conducted for active participation in education and social life, benefiting female students from equal opportunity in education, assisting university students to complete their education and become individuals with careers through the contributions of corporate and private donors.”
Females like one of Oriflame’s sponsored students – a girl, age 12, with an ID card and a right to a better education, and with hope for a better future.
Sponsored students with Johan Larsson, Managing Director, Oriflame, Turkey
The charity’s innovative hands-on approach is being coordinated by the Oriflame World Childhood Foundation, which is dedicated to empowering children and young women around the world through all means of education. Turkey is not the only country where communities benefit from the Foundation’s work. There are other projects helping children in countries where Oriflame has a presence.
The work in Turkey is just one part of the company’s influence on the lives of people across the world. Oriflame was founded in Sweden in 1967 by Jonas and Robert af Jochnick and their friend Bengt Hellsten and started operating in Turkey in 1992. Today it is recognised as one of the fastest-growing direct selling beauty companies, operating in more than 60 countries. It has more than 3.5 million consultants and is acknowledged as a market leader in more than half.
