MUS KADIN DERNEGI

Mus Kadin Dernegi (Mus Women Association) was founded by a group of women in 2009 in Mus city of Turkey. It is a feminist organisation and adopts non-hierarchical/feminist method. Now, it has 68 members. As Mus Kadın Derneği, we primarily aim to prevent marriage of young girls and honour killings which are still important problems in rural and urban areas in Mus. We organise trainings and workshops on against violence against women and women's human rights. Our participants are women from different backgrounds. On the other hand we try to support women's economic development in every possible way we could and therefore we organise occupational trainings to empower women in labour market or to encourage them to start a business. We run a counselling centre which is also working as helpline. We receive 5 applications as phone calls or as in-person each day on average. We support women who have been through domestic violence. Our volunteers meet women in the counselling centre, we signpost them to other organisations that they can get legal, medical or physiological help or shelter services. Our counselling centre is open every day between 09:00 am and 18:00 pm. Some of our activities as follow: We have launched a free computer training programme with one of the IT companies in Turkey and although we planned to give training to 100 women, we received 227 applications, so all of them finished the training. We had a campaign on against violence against women, called “If Women Smiles, the World Smiles”. We had an awareness rising workshops in villages of Mus. We were supported by volunteers (1 attorney and 2 specialists). The campaign was also funded by Global Dialogue. We aimed to raise awareness against stereotypes of gendered roles in a patriarchal society and to work towards violence free society. We published leaflets with helpline information, had coverage on local televisions and newspapers. So we achieved to make the violence against women visible partly in Mus. We have started an awareness rising campaign on breast cancer in villages of Mus and Bitlis cities. Dr. Nedime Kosgeroglu, a specialist, also worked with us. We gave some basic trainings for early detection of illness such as “how to examine yourself for breast cancer”. We had a successful “Free Fitness and Sports Courses for Women” campaign in Mus city. We received 980 applications. For those who came to the courses we also had small awareness rising meetings on women’s rights, violence against women, breast cancer etc. In accordance with our priorities, one of our future projects is to launch a new campaign against early marriages of young women and we like to support this campaign with the counselling centre. Therefore we are looking for support and funding for capacity building. We’d be glad if you could inform us about the support we may get from your organisation.