Support 200 Women Start Small Businesses in Turkey

After our last report on April 7th, due to the pandemic, the Turkish government started to impose lockdowns on 31 metropolitan cities on the weekends in addition to previously imposed restrictions on the movement between cities and lockdowns for people under 20 and over 65 years of age. State announced economic stimulus packages for the private sector; however, these did not provide any support for micro and small enterprises or self-employed except for postponing tax payments and providing loans. People who were already receiving state aid got cash transfer; but this did not include people who were out of economic activity due to the pandemic.

As the economic activities of the micro-entrepreneur women we work with almost stopped, to support them, we postponed their loan payments from April to June. During this period, we continued to contact all our borrowers every week and provided information on the pandemic, prevention methods and what they need to do in case of a suspicion; provided support to the vulnerable ones (elderly and sick); and shared updated information on the economic support the government is providing to the low income citizens and entrepreneurs. We started collecting repayments in June and will start loan disbursements in August. Thanks to our donors through GlobalGiving since April 2020, we were able to carry out this solidarity program during the lock downs to increase the resilience of our borrowers.

Since June 2015, KEDV raised a total of USD10,544 through 161 donations through GlobalGiving. We still have a long way to reach our target of USD 70.000 to be able to support 200 low income women entrepreneurs and the need is even more as a result of the economic impacts of the pandemic. We would be grateful if you could continue to spread the word and share the project link in your networks.

Warm regards…