KOC UNIVERSITY SOCIAL IMPACT FORUM http://kusif.ku.edu.tr 7/25/2013

WHAT SARIYER IS ABOUT

KOC UNIVERSITY SOCIAL IMPACT FORUM

I

Prepared by SWOT Team

Balam Bingül

Dila Deneçli

Handan Uslu

İpek Akın

Kübra Berberoğlu

Murat Çetinpolat

Nazlı Akbağ

Sıla Zeka

Advisors

KUSIF Managing Director, Gonca Ongan

KUSIF Assistant Project Specialist, Kazım Yılanlıdağ

*For more information you can contact us: kusif@ku.edu.tr

This report is prepared by KUSIF SWOT Team, to understand

Sarıyer from different perspectives, to be able to get to know the

local area, people who live there, identify community needs and

problems, and see how we could match these needs and problems

with available sources. It is our priority to increase Koç

University’s local impact and create social impact by working with

local stakeholders in Sarıyer, since our university campus is

located in this district.

KOC UNIVERSITY SOCIAL IMPACT FORUM II

TABLE OF CONTENT

1. Information about KUSIF 1

2. Introduction 1

3. Methodology 2

3.1. 1st phase: Preliminary Study 2

3.1.1. Organizing the working group 2

3.1.2. Screening and collecting available data 2

3.2. 2nd

phase: Face-to-face Interviews, Evaluation & Reporting 5

3.2.1. Organizing the working group 5

3.2.2. Choosing organization to have face-to-face interviews 5

3.2.3. Content of the interviews 6

4. General Information about Sarıyer 7

4.1. Social 8

4.2. Economic 8

4.3. Environmental 8

5. Stakeholders in Sarıyer 9

5.1. Governmental Institutions 11

5.1.1. Sarıyer Municipality 11

a) SAKEM (Sarıyer Municipality Women Coordination Center) 11

b) Sarıyer Disabled People Coordination Center 11

c) Micro Credit Center 12

5.1.2. Sarıyer District Governorship 12

a) Sarıyer District Food, Agriculture and Livestock Management

5.2. Non-Governmental Organizations 12

5.2.1. Associations 12

a) Disability Associations 12

KOC UNIVERSITY SOCIAL IMPACT FORUM III

Six Dots Foundation for the Blinds 13

b) Educational Associations 13

Darüşşafaka Education Association 13

Lean Institute Association 13

c) Environmental Associations 14

Kilyos Kumköy Association for Protection of Natural Environment

and Environmental Culture 14

5.2.2. Social Entrepreneurs 14

5.3. Educational Institutions 14

5.4. Other Organizations 15

5.4.1. Small Businesses through cooperatives 15

a) Beekeeping Cooperative 16

b) İstinye Fishery Cooperative 16

c) Sarıyer Neighborhood and Villages Women Farmers’ Cooperative

Agricultural Development 16

5.4.2. Health Institutions 17

5.4.3. Local Media 17

6. SWOT Analysis of Sarıyer 17

6.1. Strengths 18

6.1.1. Ability of Offering Trainings 18

6.1.2. Capacity of Collaborations and Forming Network 18

6.1.3. Potential to Increase Impact on a Local Scale 18

6.1.4. Being Competent & Expert in Their Fields 19

6.2. Weaknesses and Threats 19

6.2.1. Lack of Human Resources 19

KOC UNIVERSITY SOCIAL IMPACT FORUM IV

6.2.2. Lack of Funding for Projects 20

6.2.3. Lack of Communication among Stakeholders in Sarıyer 20

6.2.4. Difficulty of Reaching Small Associations in Sarıyer 20

6.3. Opportunities 21

6.3.1. Awareness and Raising Projects 21

6.3.2. Training Projects for Stakeholders 21

6.3.3. Enhancing Sustainability in Sarıyer 22

7. Conclusion 22

8. References 24

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1. Information about KUSIF

KUSIF (Koç University Social Impact Forum), located in Istanbul at Koç University

Rumeli Feneri Campus, was founded in November 2012 as both “the Research and

Practice Center” and “the Social Innovation Catalyzer”. KUSIF aims to measure,

communicate, and create social impact through education, research and collaboration.

KUSIF works closely with the Research Centers at KU to add nuances of social

impact development & assessment to existing efforts. KUSIF will serve as a platform for

research in various social innovation topics and social impact measurement, especially

about Turkey. Additionally, KUSIF will carry out its own activities in collaboration with

specialists or organizations in different disciplines and backgrounds. Stakeholders of

KUSIF are Koç University (Students, Faculty Members, Staff and Alumni), Social Sector

Members (NGOs, Public Institutions, and Social Entrepreneurs), and Private Ones

(Enterprises, Entrepreneurs, and Intrapreneurs.)

At present, KUSIF has an executive board and as well as a management team

established by Managing Director Gonca Ongan and Assistant Project Specialist Kazım

Yılanlıdağ. Also, other members of management team are Assistant Student Nazlı Akbağ

and Interns Murat Çetinpolat, Sıla Zeka.

2. Introduction

This report is prepared by KUSIF SWOT Team to understand Sarıyer from different

perspectives, to be able to get to know the local area, people who live there, identify

community needs and problems, and see how we could match these needs and problems

with available sources. It is our priority to increase Koç University’s local impact and

create social impact by working with local stakeholders in Sarıyer, since our university

campus is placed in this district.

In this regard, KUSIF SWOT Team was organized among KUSIF interns and

assistant students as volunteer civil society coordinators. Members of SWOT Team are

Handan Uslu, Balam Bingül, Dila Deneçli, İpek Akın, Kübra Berberoğlu, Nazlı Akbağ,

Sıla Zeka and Murat Çetinpolat. KUSIF SWOT Team has contacted with stakeholders in

Sarıyer via phone or e-mail, and had face-to-face interviews with many of them.

In this report, first, we will explain our methodology that we have conducted while

preparing the report in two phases. After that, we would like to give general information

about Sarıyer, its history and its sustainability situation regarding environmental,

economic and social aspects. Then, we will introduce you to stakeholders in Sarıyer.

These stakeholders can be grouped as governmental, non-governmental organizations as

associations and social entrepreneurs, educational institutions and other organizations

as cooperatives, health institutions and local media. And lastly, as an outcome, we will

run the SWOT (Strengths-Weaknesses-Opportunities-Threats) analysis of Sarıyer. The

main point of these efforts is to be able to understand how we could generate social

impact with stakeholders by creating sustainable programs and stakeholders’ networks in

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the future. As expected, we will organize seminars and courses to be able to pursue these

studies, and to share the knowledge gained during investigation process and field studies.

In addition, KUSIF develops “Community Engagement & Leadership” Track and as well

as a course on “Experiential Learning” to equip its students with tools to create social

impact. This report and the study that we have run, will help also KUSIF to identify its

local partners for field studies for the new course and the track.

KUSIF aims to communicate results and knowledge about social impact creation

through publications, regular events, visionary speaker series and annual symposiums.

This report about Sarıyer prepared by students is the first output of SWOT Team. In

addition, other reports on different topics about social impact issues will be prepared by

the SWOT Team.

3. Methodology

In order to prepare this report, we used the methodology below. The methodology is

structured in two phases to be able to work efficiently. The first phase is Preliminary

Study part where we gather the first information about stakeholders in Sarıyer. The

second part is Interviews, Evaluation & Reporting part where we gather detailed

information about selected stakeholders through interviews, evaluate, and report this

information.

3.1. 1st phase: Preliminary Study

This phase can be classified in two parts. The first part is organizing the working

group which is called SWOT Team, and the second part is screening and collecting

available data. What is covered in this phase is mainly getting information about

stakeholders and their situation. In addition, SWOT Team chose the organizations that

should be investigated more.

3.1.1. Organizing the working group

In this regard, an announcement was made for undergraduate and graduate students

to work at KUSIF as “Civil Society Partnership Development Coordinators" and six of

them were chosen and worked for 2 months between 11th

March and 6th

May 2013 as

team members.

3.1.2. Screening and collecting available data

After the SWOT Team was formed, the list of NGOs and their contact information

was received from Sarıyer Municipality and Sarıyer District Governorship. Other

stakeholders’ contacts were searched on the internet. First of all, SWOT Team studied

out more information about all the stakeholders in Sarıye,r and collected data about their

activities and projects if there was any. According to Sarıyer Municipality, the number of

NGOs established in Sarıyer is 225. (Sarıyer District Governorship claims the number of

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NGOs are 378 not 225, however, since there is no classification of the organizations we

considered the number which was obtained from Sarıyer Municipality). Furthermore, as

you can see in Figure 1, most of the NGOs are either Mosque associations (59 - 26%) or

Sport associations (51 - 23%), which are not included in this report. 83 NGOs (37%)

were analyzed in detail. After that, SWOT Team contacted with the organizations which

are still available to get in touch with, and which are actively working to check the data

on hand from the source directly, associations themselves. At the end of the first phase,

SWOT Team reached 32 organizations among 83 of them by the phone or e-mail. You can

see the list of the organizations we have contacted (Table 1) and NGO distribution of

Sarıyer according to their fields (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Distribution of NGOs in Sarıyer

Source: Prepared by KUSIF SWOT Team based on the numbers available in Sarıyer

Municipality website

Table 1: Organizations which are contacted via phone or mail

Animal Protection Association

(Hayvanların Yaşam Haklarını Koruma Derneği)

Arıköy Environment Volunteers Association

Association of Local People of Sarıyer

Avrasya Sport Association for the Blinds

Bahçeköy Culture Association (Bahçeköy İlim ve Kültür Derneği)

Beekeeping Cooperative

Boğaziçi Environment, Culture Solidarity Association

Çayırbaşı Social Aid, Solidarity and Culture Association

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Darüşşafaka Society/Darüşşafaka Education Association

Derbent Beautification and Solidarity Association

Design and Innovation Initiative for Sustainable Living

Environment Volunteers Association

İstinye Fishery Cooperative

İZEV (İstanbul Mental Disability Foundation)

Kazımkarabekir Beautification and Solidarity Association

Kısırkaya Rural Area Development Cooperative

Kilyos Environment Protection Association

Kilyos Kumköy Associaton for Protection of Natural Environment and Environmental Culture

Koru Neighborhood Association

(Koru Mahallesi İlköğretim Okulu Yaptırma ve Yaşatma Derneği)

Lean Institute

Numune Fishery Cooperative

Rumelifeneri Fishery Cooperative

SAKEM (Sarıyer Municipality Women Coordination Center)

Sarıyer Fishery Cooperative

Sarıyer Local People Association (Sarıyerliler Derneği)

Sarıyer Maden Neighborhood Association

(Sarıyer Maden Mahallesi Çevre ve Güzelleştirme Yardımlaşma ve Dayanışma Derneği )

Sarıyer Micro Credit Center

Sarıyer Posta Newspaper

Sarıyer Neighborhood and Villages Women Farmers’ Cooperative Agricultural Development

Six Dots Foundation for the Blinds

Türkiye Helping Association-Sarıyer

(Türkiye Yardım Sevenler Derneği - Sarıyer şubesi)

Source: This list is prepared based on SWOT Team’s investigation duringMarch, April and May

2013

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3.2. 2nd

phase: Face-to-Face Interviews, Evaluation & Reporting

This phase consists of 3 main parts. The first part is organizing the working group,

new SWOT Team, and the second one, which is a significant part for our report is about

choosing appropriate organizations to have face-to-face interviews. At last, the third part

is evaluating what we have done so far, and preparing “What Sarıyer is About” report.

3.2.1. Organizing the working group

After the first SWOT Team had completed its own work, a new announcement was

made for undergraduate and graduate students again to work at KUSIF as “Social Impact

interns” and “Team Leader Trainees”. Among the applicants, three team members were

selected in order to work during the summer semester.

3.2.2. Choosing organizations to have face-to-face interview

The next step for the new SWOT Team was to determine which organization would

be proper to have face-to-face interviews. Starting from this viewpoint, the criteria of

choosing the organization to interview were defined. These criteria are;

Field of the organization (such as Disability, Environment, Education,

Agriculture, Fishery, etc.)

Type of the organization (such as Governmental organizations,

non-governmental organizations, educational organizations and other

organizations, etc.)

Willingness to cooperate

Having experience and capacity to develop and run projects

Since the real purpose was to get to know Sarıyer, and examine the whole local area,

these criteria were selected to cover all the part of the local community. Due to the

diversity of the organizations in Sarıyer, we, as SWOT Team, chose the organizations

working on different areas. Another critical point in order to fully comprehend the

community and its needs is to have all kinds of organizations included. In this respect,

SWOT Team visited NGOs, governmental institutions, associations, social entrepreneurs,

cooperatives, health institutions, educational institutions and local media. These two

criteria helped us evaluate Sarıyer to a great extent. On the other hand, some

organizations are not willing to collaborate, in spite of fitting to these conditions;

therefore SWOT Team visited only the organizations which had intention of working with

KUSIF. At last, organizations which have been carrying projects, especially in

cooperation with other organizations, are our priority, because having experience and

capability to develop new projects is important for us. You can see the list of

organizations that we had face-to-face interviews in Table 2.

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Table 2: Interviewed Organizations

Beekeeping Cooperative

Daruşşafaka Society/Darüşşafaka Education Association

Design and Innovation Initiative for Sustainable Living

İstinye Fishery Cooperative

Kilyos Kumköy Associaton for Protection of Natural Environment and Environmental Culture

Lean Institute

SAKEM (Sarıyer Municipality Women Coordination Center)

Sarıyer Disabled People Coordination Center

Sarıyer Micro Credit Center

Sarıyer Municipality Numbering Department

Sarıyer Posta Newspaper

Sarıyer Neighborhood and Villages Women Farmers’ Cooperative Agricultural Development

Six Dots Foundation for the Blinds

Sarıyer District Governorship - Sarıyer District Food, Agriculture and Livestock Management

Rotary 100. Yıl Anatolian High School

Source: SWOT Team’s study based on the criteria to choose stakeholder for interviews

3.2.3. Content of the interviews

The purpose of having interviews with different organizations working on several

areas is to gather information as much as possible. With this purpose, interviews and the

key questions are prepared appropriately. There are some basic questions that we asked

in every interview .Our main questions are about Sarıyer, and what these people think

about Sarıyer in that our focus is able to comprehend Sarıyer. These questions are:

What is the field of your organization?

What are the aims and activities of your organization?

What do you think about the community needs of Sarıyer?

What are the challenges that you are facing in Sarıyer?

What are the statistical data you can provide us about Sarıyer?

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Even though, these are the basic of our questions, in every interview, other questions

were arose depending on the conversation.

In addition to these questions, we also asked specific questions to get to know the

organizations better, especially about their projects. Since one of the purposes of SWOT

Team is to evaluate the opportunities and potential collaborations, we also evaluated the

circumstances of possible partnership.

After each interview, we, as SWOT Team, prepared a detailed report for every

organization. These reports include Strength-Weakness-Opportunities-Threats (SWOT) of

the organizations. At the end, based on all evaluations, “What Sarıyer Is About” Report

has been prepared.

4. General information about Sarıyer

We, as SWOT Team would like to present background information about Sarıyer

from various sources. In this part, you will learn different characteristics of Sarıyer,

starting with its general characteristics and historical background. And then, we will try

to provide you some statistical data and information which were picked up from Sarıyer

Municipality, and give you a clear vision about the current situation in Sarıyer.

Sarıyer is one of the oldest districts of Istanbul. Sarıyer whose first known name is

Simas which means “Holly Mother” is northernmost district of Istanbul on the European

side of the Bosphorus. Sarıyer is a rare place that you can see both lush forest and

amazing sea at the same time. The district occupies an area of 151 km2

which consists of

the villages on the European side of the Bosphorus from Rumelifeneri, down through

Tarabya, Yeniköy, İstinye, Emirgan to Rumelihisarı with 27 neighborhoods and 8 villages

which are known as Kumköy (Kilyos), Demirciköy, Garipçe, Gümüşdere, Zekeriyaköy,

Kısırkaya, Rumelifeneri and Uskumruköy (1)

.

In the history, Sarıyer had never been a popular location till 1453. In this year, the

Ottoman Empire attempted to get immigrants settle down to district. In the 16th

and 17th

centuries, Rumeli Hisarı and Yeniköy became important villages and improved during the

18th

century with increasing population. So far, Sarıyer which used to be a small summer

village kept improving and on May 15, 1930 Sarıyer became a district. On 18 October,

2012, Maslak and Ayazağa which are important financial centers of Istanbul became

neighborhoods of Sarıyer. There are almost 4500 businesses in Maslak and more than

2000 in Ayazağa. Now, with this change, Sarıyer which used to be a fishing town within

forest, and having a coastal line on Bosphorus is now a business center as well as a

natural beauty.

In present, Sarıyer is a big district with its schools, hospitals, museums and many

other institutions. According to Sarıyer Municipality, there are 6 museums in Sarıyer

which are Sadberk Hanım Museum, Sabancı University Sakıp Sabancı Museum, Ural

Ataman Classic Car Museum, Rumeli Hisar Museum, Serpuş Museum and Maslak Kasrı.

According to Sarıyer District of National Education, there are 89 schools in Sarıyer.

(1) Sarıyer Municipality www.sariyer.bel.tr

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33.184 students are having their education, and 1.393 teachers are working in these

schools. In addition, there are 5 public and private universities in Sarıyer; Boğaziçi

University, İstanbul Technical University, Işık University, İstanbul University Faculty of

Forestry and Koç University. Besides that, there are 3 big public hospitals, some major

private hospitals, and many small to medium scale medical institutions. The public

hospitals are İstinye Government Hospital, İsmail Akgün Government Hospital and M.

Sabancı Baltalimanı Hospital. Also, Sarıyer is a multi-faith place that you can find

mosques, churches and synagogues at the same time.

To be able to state the current situation in Sarıyer, we will idescribe the district from

3 different points of views; social, economic and environmental aspects of sustainability

as mentioned in the Sarıyer Development Action Plan prepared the Sarıyer Municipality

(2).

4.1. Social

Sarıyer which used to be a small town, still has been showing the characteristics of

its history. Like in small districts, strong family bonds, neighborhood culture and

solidarity are social strengths of Sarıyer. As a result of this culture, it is easy to find many

solidarity associations in the district. Other than this, Sarıyer has a socially and

culturally rich city population. From unofficial sources, we may say that there are

Turkish Greeks and Gypsies. On the other hand, there is a high unemployment rate in

Sarıyer. Also, although Sarıyer has an important historical place, cultural and social

activities are insufficient.

4.2. Economic

From the economic aspect, agriculture, fishing and mussel hunting are important

income sources for the local people. Moreover, some of small producers or fishermen

have local brands to sell their products in the districts to a lower price. However, the

promotion of brands is not sufficient enough and local brands are not known as much as

they should have been. Also, Sarıyer is a promising place for tourism sector and the

employable young population rate is getting higher and higher to run this kind of sector

in the area. Unfortunately, there is no sector diversity in Sarıyer and the main sectors are

particular ones like fishery and agriculture. Therefore, it is hard to build a new sector in

the area.

4.3. Environmental

One of the most glamorous parts of Sarıyer is its unspoiled environment. Sarıyer, as

a natural habitat, has wide green areas with a biological diversity. This biological

diversity includes species of seaside ecosystem and long coastline. Another, important

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environmental feature of Sarıyer is non-existence of industrial wastes since there is no

industrial establishment in the area. It is important not to forget that economical features

of Sarıyer as a fishery and agriculture area, is the results of arable areas and productive

fishing areas.

5. Stakeholders in Sarıyer

We believe that each district in Istanbul has different stakeholders depending on

their particular situation. For instance, in Sarıyer there are no industrial associations,

but there are many small associations and cooperatives. At first, we would like you to

give you a general picture of stakeholders in Sarıyer.

Like all the other districts, Sarıyer has governmental and non-governmental

institutions. On the other hand, fishery and agriculture are two important economic

income sources for Sarıyer local people; therefore, it is not surprising that there are

many agricultural and fishery cooperatives, which is peculiar to Sarıyer . Other than

these, educational organizations are quite important for Sarıyer due to the five different

universities in the district. It is also important to add health institutions and local media

to this context as stakeholders. As general, we grouped the stakeholders of Sarıyer in 4

main titles; governmental, non-governmental, educational and other organizations, as

you can see on Figure 2.

However, we were able to contact only some of them. Now, in this part, we introduce

you the stakeholders that SWOT Team had interviewed from governmental,

non-governmental, educational, and other organizations.

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5.1. Governmental Institutions

The main governmental institutions in Sarıyer are Sarıyer District Governorship,

mukhtars, and Sarıyer Municipality. Among them, we contacted with Sarıyer

Municipality and Sarıyer District Governorship. From Sarıyer District Governorship we

contacted Sarıyer District Food, Agriculture and Livestock Management; and, we

collected information from some mukhtars by the phone. From the Municipality, we had

interviews with SAKEM (Sarıyer Municipality Women Coordination Center), Sarıyer

Municipality Disabled People Coordination Center and Sarıyer Municipality Micro

Credit Center.

5.1.1. Sarıyer Municipality

SAKEM (Sarıyer Municipality Women Coordinator Center), Sarıyer Disabled People

Coordination Center, and Micro Credit Center are governmental centers under the

control of Sarıyer Municipality, which aim to work with various socially and

economically unprivileged groups in Sarıyer such as women, disabled people, and small

business mostly run by women.

a) SAKEM (Sarıyer Municipality Women Coordination Center)

SAKEM is an organization which helps women in Sarıyer to make them feel safe and

literate. SAKEM was founded one year ago as a department of Sarıyer Municipality. The

most appealing part of SAKEM is that they have already taken part in many projects, and

worked with other organizations in a short time (AÇEV- Mother Child Education

Foundation, Mor Çatı-Women’s Shelter Foundation). Besides that, SAKEM has been

working on women in Sarıyer, and probably has the most accurate and qualified

information about the general situation of women in Sarıyer.

b) Sarıyer Disabled People Coordination Center

The organization’s interests are mainly about disabled people, as its name referred.

Like SAKEM, this organization has very accurate and qualified information about

disabled people living in Sarıyer, and develops projects for them. At this point, there are

two important functions or duties of the organization: “Improving the accessibility for

disabled people” and “Creating awareness”.

Accessibility is a priority for disabled people, because every other thing like having a

social life, having a job starts with it. By the help of the new laws, there are some legal

arrangements for old and new buildings which regulate the life standards for disabled

people. Therefore, this organization tries to raise awareness on this new law, and support

making appropriate changes in the buildings according to the laws. This is not an easy

task to do as there are a lot of existing buildings, but, at least the new ones could be built

based on increasing the life standards of disabled people.

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Besides the accessibility, another significant problem for disabled people is that

other people usually do not care them. The community intends to stay away from disabled

people, and ignore them. In this regard, Sarıyer Disabled People Coordination Center

has aimed to change this situation, and create awareness, so that disabled people can

have a better place in society.

c) Micro Credit Center

Another important organization working with grass roots women is Micro Credit

Center helping women to establish new small businesses. It gives 1.000 TLs to each

woman who has attended its training, and also has a very systematic plan to give credit

and collect payments. So far, with the help of these systems almost 500 women in Sarıyer

have had their own establishments.

Another good side of the organization is that while collecting payments, it creates an

internal network by gathering these women, helps them work together and support each

others.

5.1.2. Sarıyer District Food, Agriculture and Livestock Management

All cooperatives in Sarıyer are controlled by the Sarıyer District Food, Agriculture

and Livestock Management. That is why, as they represent government, this organization

is an important stakeholder to collaborate with when working with cooperatives. The

organization is very open to submit projects for funding, and work in collaboration to

increase the capacity of cooperatives in Sarıyer.

5.2. Non- Governmental Organizations

Non-governmental organizations are important for Sarıyer like in any other district.

As you can see, we grouped non-governmental organizations as associations (disability,

educational and environmental associations) and social entrepreneurs.

5.2.1. Associations

Associations are one of the main sources which could be the drivers of social impact

creation in a community. Knowing this, SWOT Team has contacted with many

associations who work on different fields to be able to fully comprehend the associations

in Sarıyer. The main fields of associations that we had interviewed with are disability,

education and environment. These selected associations could be representatives of other

associations in Sarıyer.

a) Disability Associations

Like every other community, people in Sarıyer are also concerned about disabled

people in their district. However, the governmental and non-governmental efforts are

independent from each other. In this regard, we interviewed with not only governmental,

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but also, non-governmental disability organizations. You can find the information about

governmental institution (Sarıyer Disabled People Coordination Center) above under the

title of “Governmental Institutions”.

Six Dots Foundation for the Blinds

This foundation has a great importance as the first rehab center for the blind in

Turkey. It offers a basic training which lasts nearly 5.5 months, and for those who have

taken this training, offers massages training for 1 year to help disabled people to find job.

The organization cooperates with İŞKUR and Ministry of Family and Social Politics to

arrange trainings and investigate job opportunities. Apart from this, awareness is a

problem for this organization, too. Even the trained disabled people cannot find job

because of the prejudgment. Six Dots Foundation has organized seminars and

conferences to show other people (especially the human resources departments of

companies, since this department usually is in the charge of hiring employees.) that

disabled people can work as well as other people do.

b) Educational Associations

There are only few associations which are working on the field of education.

Luckily, one of the most important, and a very active organization, Darüşşafaka Society,

which is also working on education field as Darüşşafaka Education is located in Sarıyer.

Darüşşafaka Education Association

Darüşşafaka Education Association is an essential part of Darüşşafaka Society

which is a well-known and highly organized non-governmental organization.

Darüşşafaka Education Association offers great academic opportunities for orphan

children whilst trying to adapt them into social life. Especially, the student clubs of the

Association are quite active and arrange many events during academic year. In that

point, there can be a great opportunity for Koç University student clubs to cooperate with

Darüşşafaka Education Association and for KUSIF to be a mediator between them.

Lean Institute Association

Lean Institute Turkey was established in 2002 in Sarıyer, Istanbul. Lean Institute

is an international organization and the its establishment placed in Turkey. Institute’s

main aims are to develop company growth and stakeholder satisfaction, engage

educational activities and develop Lean Projects for companies. According to Head of

the Lean Institute, Yalçın İpbüken, the organization works with 25% of the best 50

production company in Turkey.

Lean Institute has well qualified staff that might be helpful to train KUSIF interns

on project management and project writing. During our interview with the institute they

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said that they were willing to cooperate with Koç University and the other organizations.

In this regard, KUSIF can be a mediator between the institute and other stakeholders.

c) Environmental Associations

In Sarıyer, the number of local environmental associations neighborhood

associations) is more than twenty five, which is at least ten percentages of all

associations in Sarıyer. Therefore, local environmental associations are important for

both our report and social impact creation in Sarıyer. One of the most significant

associations among local environmental associations in Sarıyer is Kilyos Kumköy

Association for Protection of Natural Environment and Environmental Culture. But, of

course, they always need support regarding human resource.

Kilyos Kumköy Association for Protection of Natural Environment and

Environmental Culture

The most important part of this association is that having a project with the name of

“Protecting Sarıyer Sand Lily(3)

”. Project was run by the associations with collaboration

of Sarıyer District Governorship and Istanbul University Faculty of Forestry. The

association could manage to get EU grant funding with this project. This clearly shows

that the association has enough knowledge, capacity and experience to develop and run a

project. President of the association, Güler Sönmez, could be also considered as a social

entrepreneur.

5.2.2. Social Entrepreneurs

Social entrepreneurs are generally forgotten parts of the society, yet their social

impact should not be ignored. Although, there are not a certain number of social

entrepreneurs who work about Sarıyer, we know that many social entrepreneurs work

according to our unofficial data. To be able to know them better, we had an interview

with Pınar Öncel who is co-founder of Design and Innovation Initiative for Sustainable

Living. She stated that Sarıyer has a great potential to improve and create social impact,

but people are not aware of what they can do in order to maintain sustainability. There

are many opportunities and potential projects in Sarıyer, yet social entrepreneurs should

lead, and help the lower class of the community. For instance, Pınar Öncel, a social

entrepreneur living in Sarıyer, has a project on local food supply in Sarıyer where local

producers and residents of Sarıyer could be linked. KUSIF has also intention to support

this project through students conducting preliminary studies with local cooperatives.

5.3. Education Institutions

Education is one of the most important components of the community, so that we

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gathered information from student clubs which work with educational institutions in

Sarıyer. KU Student Clubs mostly work with primary schools and young children. Among

our SWOT Team Murat Çetinpolat will be the President of Volunteers Club at Koç

University for fall 2013. Therefore, we have firsthand experience on public primary

schools in Sarıyer. Education area is very promising for our potential projects and

collaborations. Nevertheless, we realized that educational organizations, especially

governmental schools and high schools, are not always easy partners. The basic reason

behind this is that Sarıyer District of National Education is over-protecting and very hard

to develop collaboration on legal basis.

KUSIF is interested in working especially with public high-schools to create impact

through education with students and other teachers. That is why; we have already started

a pilot education program with 100th Year Anatolian High School teachers. This

collaboration will increase its impact step by step, and will be scaled with the

participation of other public high schools in Sarıyer.

Other educational institutions are universities, and there are five universities in the

borders of Sarıyer which is a big asset for the district. Universities are not only education

institutions but also resources to improve their district, and as well ascreate social

impact. Since, as KUSIF, we represented the Koç University, we did not contact with

other universities at this stage. As a university, we know that we should contribute to

create social impact in Sarıyer.

5.4.Other Organizations

This part consists of 3 main titles which are cooperatives, health institutions and

local media in Sarıyer. Cooperatives are the main ground to investigate small businesses,

and communicate with them. After that, you can see “Health Institutions” and “Local

Media” parts.

5.4.1. Small Businesses through cooperatives

There are many small businesses in Sarıyer, and it is not realistic to contact with

them personally and collect data. The best way to communicate with small businesses is

through cooperatives which are very common in Sarıyer, since fishery and agriculture

are income sources for Sarıyer. Many small businesses are gathered under different

cooperatives. There are twelve cooperatives in Sarıyer. 4 of them are agriculture

cooperatives;

Sarıyer Neighborhood and Villages Women Farmers’ Cooperative Agricultural

Development

(3) Kum zambağı - a low-growing spring herb of the lily family with narrow linear leaves and

fragrant white salverform flowers, which is native to northern Turkish coasts of Black Sea

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Kısırkaya Village Agricultural Development Cooperative

Gümüşdere Village Agricultural Development Cooperative

Sarıyer Women in Neighborhood and Villages, Agricultural Development

Cooperative

and 8 of them are fishery cooperatives;

İstinye Fishery Cooperative

Rumelifeneri Village Fishery Cooperative

Rumeli Kavağı Fishery Cooperative

Numune Fishery Cooperative

Sarıyer Fishery Cooperative

Kireçburnu Fishery Cooperative

Yeniköy Fishery Cooperative

Garipçe Fishery Cooperative

a) Beekeeping cooperative

The cooperative aims to produce and sell natural honey in Sarıyer. However, local

people of Sarıyer do not tend to use local product because of the lack of the

advertisement. After talking with the Beekeeping cooperative, we understand better the

importance of Pınar Öncel’s project to link the local producers and local people in

Sarıyer, creating mutual benefit.

Despite being small, the organization has many projects waiting to be run. The

biggest problem of the organization is that they have no qualified staff like project

specialist. Maybe the collaboration of the organization with KUSIF will help them

overcome this problem.

b) İstinye Fishery Cooperative

İstinye Fishery Cooperative is one of the 10 fisheries cooperatives in Sarıyer. İstinye

Fishery Cooperative is established of small fishermen compared to other big

cooperatives like Rumelifeneri Fishery Cooperative which supplies 30% fish demand of

Istanbul. İstinye Fishery Cooperative’s members are 33 small fishermen. Main purpose

of the organization is economic profit through sustainable fishing. The motivation behind

this purpose is that fishery is an important income source and yet fishermen cannot rely

on this income because there are fishing ban in certain times of year. At last, we should

not forget that as long as the fishery improves, Sarıyer improves. That is why, promoting

and developing sustainable fishing in Sarıyer is important.

c) Sarıyer Neighborhood and Villages Women Farmers’ Cooperative Agricultural

Development

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Sarıyer Neighborhood and Villages Women Farmers’ Cooperative Agricultural

Development was established at October 2nd

, 2012, as the result of Sarıyer Women

Entrepreneurs efforts. The most important success of the cooperative is the project,

named “Supporting Entrepreneurs Women of Sarıyer in Agriculture”. This project was

run by the cooperative with the support of Consulate of Sweden. For the project,

Consulate of Sweden has granted 10.000 Euro. The cooperative is one of the most active

cooperatives, working on women farmers in Sarıyer. Therefore the organization can be a

good potential partner to develop projects.

5.4.2. Health Institutions

Like all the other organizations in Sarıyer, we, as SWOT Team, contacted with some

of the sixteen health institutions in Sarıyer, especially private ones. As stated before in the

methodology part, we followed our standard procedure, and try to contact via phone and

mail. However, most of the medical centers in Sarıyer are unlikely to cooperate with

other organizations. The general idea about co-operating or collaborating with other

organizations is thought as if it required for them to share personal information of

patients, even though we have never asked personal questions. In that point, we realize

that there is a low chance to work with health institutions in Sarıyer in immediate future.

On the other hand, we contacted with important public hospitals, Baltalimanı and Istinye.

However, we could not set a result of collaboration, or learn what they do. Even though

hospitals could play an important role on public health projects, at present, they are not

active as stakeholders for social impact creation in Sarıyer.

5.4.3. Local Media

Local media in Sarıyer can be defined as local newspapers and internet newspapers.

In Sarıyer, there are four main local newspapers working actively. On the other side,

there are many internet newspapers and its number is increasing day by day since there

is no regulation or control on publishing internet newspaper. To be able to get more

qualified information, we have talked to founder of Sarıyer Posta Newspaper, Levent

Pehlivanoğlu. Like many other people living in Sarıyer, Mr. Pehlivanoğlu said that the

biggest problem of Sarıyer is the lack of communication and they, as Sarıyer Posta

Newspaper, are trying to strengthen the local network and communication.

6. SWOT Analysis of Sarıyer

First of all, SWOT is a methodology for us to evaluate the information we got from

different sources. SWOT is the abbreviation of Strengths - Weaknesses - Opportunities -

Threats. Running a SWOT analysis of an organization, a project or a community, gives a

much clearer idea about what is actually happening, and what the situation is. With this

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purpose, to be able to give you a clearer vision and indicate the community needs, we

prepared a SWOT Analysis of Sarıyer District. As the name refers, this part consists of

strengths, weaknesses and threats, and opportunities of Sarıyer.

6.1. Strengths

This part of the report is prepared to analyze and evaluate strengths and potential

capacities of Sarıyer and its stakeholders. Currently, Sarıyer carries social and economic

importance with its stakeholders. For example, while looking at economic side, Sarıyer

district has Maslak which is an important financial center in Istanbul. Looking at social

side, Sarıyer has universities and non-governmental organizations that have the potential

to create social impact. Besides Sarıyer’s impact as being an important district, the

stakeholders also have their own strengths and competencies regarding of their interests

and fields. Shown as below, the strengths of Sarıyer and its stakeholders are divided into

four categories to illustrate in a better way.

6.1.1. Ability of Offering Trainings

Most of the stakeholders in Sarıyer offer important trainings regarding of their

fields. These trainings basically aim to improve Sarıyer in various ways. As an example,

Six Dots Foundation for the Blinds offers a training that helps blind people find a job,

informs local people about disabled people, their conditions and rights. In addition, Lean

Institute organizes workshops are directed to small business and companies about

writing projects and project management to increase their capacities. Moreover, Nelih

Akay in Sarıyer Neighborhood and Villages Women Farmers’ Cooperative Agricultural

Development arranges training that aims to increase young citizens’ participation in the

decision making processes with the help of Habitat Youth Association.

6.1.2. Capacity of Collaboration and Forming Networks

Having social networks and partners are the significant instruments to both running

projects and knowing other partners in Sarıyer. Based on interviews with stakeholders, it

is possible to say that the stakeholders are willing to collaborate with Koç University and

other organizations. For instance, Darüşşafaka Cemiyeti has a good network with their

benefactors. SAKEM and Sarıyer Neighborhood and Villages Women Farmers’

Cooperative Agricultural Development have also powerful networks with governmental,

non-governmental organizations and cooperatives. Also these two organizations have run

their projects and activities with the help of their networks and partners. We could say

that there are potential networks in Sarıyer to create social impact.

6.1.3. Potential to Increase Impact on a Local Scale

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The stakeholders in Sarıyer contribute to advancement of social entrepreneurship

and goals for scaling social impact in the most effective and timely manner by moving

community needs closer and encouraging people in their fields. For example, Sarıyer

Municipality Micro Credit Center has reached almost 500 grass-route women, helped

them build small businesses, and give 600.000 TL as credit in total. In addition,

social-purpose organizations like Six Dots Foundation for the Blinds assist disabled

people with finding a job, providing services and facilities such as transportation vehicle,

giving financial support, free holiday for both them and their family. Moreover, the

governmental organization, SAKEM, plans to prepare literature workshop, recreational

activities, and also visit new mothers who gave birth for supporting them by giving

training about mother and child health. We believe that there is a potential to increase

positive impact on a locale scale. Besides, KUSIF could support these stakeholders to

measure their impact.

6.1.4. Being Competent & Expert on Their Fields

It is important to mention that having comprehensive knowledge in working areas

facilitates detection of problems and finding solutions. In this respect, the local

stakeholders have enough information about Sarıyer in their own fields. For example,

SAKEM is highly aware of women rights and the situation of women living in Sarıyer.

Also, Sarıyer Municipality Micro Credit Center has qualified information, statistical

analysis about economic conditions of women in Sarıyer. In addition, many of

stakeholders have curiosity about making new projects in their fields. For example,

Beekeeping cooperative tries to develop new drugs made from the milk bee.

6.2. Weaknesses and Threats

Besides the strengths of stakeholders in Sarıyer, weaknesses of Sarıyer are equally

important to determine. As we discussed above, although there are strengths of the

stakeholders in Sarıyer, there are also weaknesses of Sarıyer that need to be improved. In

this part of the report, the weaknesses to be improved are divided into 4 groups as shown

below.

6.2.1. Lack of Human Resources

While interviewing with the stakeholders in Sarıyer, we recognize that they have

problems about finding qualified human resources to write and develop projects for

funding. For instance, Beekeeping Cooperative, despite having plans of the projects; has

no qualified staff such as project specialist to put these plans into practices. Moreover, in

Sarıyer Neighborhood and Villages Women Farmers’ Cooperative Agricultural

Development, Nelih Akay talks about the lack of having a permanent team to work with,

20

about youth projects. Also in Lean Institute, the number of qualified interns is not

sufficient enough to train staff.

6.2.2. Lack of Funding for projects

Finding financial support and in-kind contribution are essential factors to manage

projects efficiently. At the end of face-to face interviews, we concluded that regardless of

the size and type of organizations, funding issues are the biggest challenge faced by

organizations. For example, as governmental organization, SAKEM’s budget is limited,

and it is a challenge for them to be able to continue their project, and they need to rise

their funding. In addition, Sarıyer Municipality Micro Credit Center reaches women in a

large scale, helps them to build small businesses, and give credits. In this regard, this

organization needs financial help to support these grass-route women. Another example

from non- profit organizations, Kilyos Kumköy Association for Protection of Natural

Environment and Environmental Culture needs continuous financial support to overcome

funding problems to execute their projects.

6.2.3. Lack of Communication among Stakeholders in Sarıyer

The stakeholders in Sarıyer frequently encounter communication problems among

themselves. This situation leads to emerging issues about project development as well as

outcome and impact creation. As an example, SAKEM visits new mothers who gave birth

in a short period of time, for supporting them by giving training about women and child

health. However, the Ministry of Family and Social Policies is not willing to cooperate

with SAKEM by giving the list of the name of these women. In addition, even though Six

Dots Foundation for the Blinds offers trainings and helps disabled people to find a job,

most of the companies and governmental organizations are not willing to hire disabled

people, even though there is a law saying that every company who has more than 50

employees must hire disabled people as much as 3% of total employee number.

Moreover, from cooperatives’ side, ‘Honey Forest Project’ of Beekeeping cooperative

aims local people to visit there and see the natural honey, but it has not been organized

and actualized because of the lack of support coming from other governmental

organizations in Sarıyer. Unfortunately, stakeholders in Sarıyer usually do not work

together, or do not know how to work together to create collaborative impact.

6.2.4. Difficulty of reaching small associations in Sarıyer

While making interviews with the stakeholders via phone calls, phone numbers of

some small associations could not be reached. Municipality and communes were asked

for the telephone numbers of these associations to reach them; however, no one knows

these associations. For instance, we can’t find true contact information of Yeniköy

Beautification and Development Association and Sarıyer Service Association. Most of

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these small associations might not be active and reachable.

6.3. Opportunities

While trying to get to know Sarıyer as both a district and a community, we, as the

SWOT Team, also evaluated previous and ongoing projects. During this time, it is not

hard to realize that there are some common issues for similar organizations. Solutions

and project ideas to solve these problems are also very similar and yet these solutions

cannot be put into real life because of different reasons. At this point, KUSIF can

cooperate with organizations or be a mediator for organizations to cooperate to carry

out these ideas and opportunities. Generally, these ideas and opportunities can be

grouped into 4 classes, such as awareness raising and communication projects, training

projects, and enhancing sustainability in Sarıyer.

6.3.1. Awareness and Raising Communication Projects

Awareness is a vital problem for many organization especially the organizations

which are working with minority groups. Disability organizations are the ones who

suffered this problem most. Disabled people are thought by community as if they are not

capable of doing anything or working in anywhere. Because of these reason, almost in

every disability association there are awareness projects to adopt disabled people into

social and business life. Unfortunately, although these organizations try hard to make a

change in this issue, there is still need to create awareness.

Another problem for most organizations - again the organizations which are working

with minority - is the lack of promotion and communication. The lack of communication

causes a vicious cycle; and many organizations are either not known or known

incorrectly. A good example to this is Darüşşafaka Society. Even though the organization

only cares the orphan children, it is usually confused with Darülaceze, an organization

which takes care of helpless people including children or elderly people. At this point,

communication projects can be quite helpful and promising, and also these projects may

help associations to reach more people.

6.3.2. Training Projects for Stakeholders

Most of the organizations and especially NGOs in Sarıyer are local, small

organizations. While trying to evaluate and report the situation of Sarıyer, we realized

that most of the organizations in Sarıyer are not getting any help from external sources

like universities or governmental organizations, although there are possibilities. That is

why; most of the stakeholders cannot develop projects to be funded. To change this

22

situation, training projects can be planned. For instance, Turkey office of The Lean

Institute which is an international institute offers a project management and project

writing training. Also Habitat Youth Association also offers trainings to write Youth

Projects funded by EU Youth in Action Program.

6.3.3. Enhancing Sustainability in Sarıyer

Sustainability is a topic which has been getting important recently. It is possible to see

sustainability projects in every city or even in every district. Sustainability could be

applied to every aspect of the life, any organization or any project. During an interview

with Pınar Öncel who is co-founder of Design and Innovation Initiative for Sustainable

Living, she said that “Local people and people who are working at organizations in

Sarıyer are not careful enough about sustainability, or they just do not know what they

should care. There is a huge need to learn and apply sustainability.” Therefore, by

teaching sustainability approaches to local people or people who run organizations, we

can have a more sustainable Sarıyer economically, socially and environmentally. Indeed,

stakeholders should be the drivers of economic, social and environmental sustainability

of Sarıyer. But, they are not fully aware of it.

7. Conclusion

One of the goals of KUSIF is to develop sustainable programs creating social impact

in Sarıyer by working with local networks such as local people, associations,

cooperatives, government, social entrepreneurs and local media. Understanding Sarıyer

means understanding social impact potential that could be created by internal or external

networks. The purpose of this report is to share this knowledge and describe the situation

in Sarıyer.

While preparing this report, our main information sources were interviews and

researches about the organizations. While following this procedure, two different SWOT

Teams were organized. From March to May, first of them did researches about the

organizations, contacted them via mail or phone to get the first impression, and

categorized the contacted organizations to understand whether there would be a chance

to collaborate or not. After this step, during summer period, the second SWOT Team was

formed, started to have face-to-face interviews with many different organizations like

governmental associations, cooperatives etc., and prepared reports for each interview by

stating the SWOT (strength-weakness-opportunity-threat) of the each organization. These

organizations were chosen based on some criteria such as the type of the organization

(cooperative, governmental etc.), the working area, (disability, fishery, etc.), willingness

to cooperate, and capability to develop projects with KUSIF.

At this point, so as to make a more clear understanding of Sarıyer while preparing

this report, the contacted organizations are grouped into 4 main groups as governmental,

non-governmental, educational and other organizations. Non-governmental

23

organizations in Sarıyer are grouped into 2 main groups as associations (disability,

environmental and educational associations) and social entrepreneurs. Cooperatives,

health institutions and local media are placed under the group of other organizations.

As the output of this study, SWOT (Strengths - Weaknesses - Opportunities - Threats)

of Sarıyer has been analyzed. Strengths of Sarıyer are mainly, ability of offering trainings

in their fields of expertise, capacity of collaboration and forming networks, potential to

increase impact on a local scale, and being competent & expert on their fields to work

with different groups in Sarıyer.

But also, there are important weaknesses and threats of Sarıyer, which are

influencing Sarıyer unfavorably and hindering the potential to create impact. The main

weaknesses of Sarıyer are lack of human resources, lack of funding for projects, lack of

communication among stakeholders in Sarıyer, distant standpoint of government to

cooperate with local organizations, and difficulty of reaching small associations in

Sarıyer.

However, there are solutions where there are problems. Since weaknesses and

problems of Sarıyer are not unsolvable, there are ideas or projects that can be develop to

overcome these common problems. Major ideas and potential projects could be

awareness raising and communication projects, training projects for stakeholders, and

enhancing sustainability in Sarıyer.

In every society, there are many factors affecting social impact creation. It is vital to

be aware of these factors and your own effect. Moreover, it is much more important to be

sensitive and mindful of the needs of others. Usually, people do not know how to work

together to create social impact, and they all think only from their own perspectives. That

is why, it is important to communicate with others to inform them on how they come

together to create social impact for Sarıyer. If we, as KUSIF and as Koç University, can

understand SWOT of Sarıyer clearly, and be mindful of what we can do, there are many

things that we can change positively in Sarıyer through our own resources. And, this is

not only true for us, but also for every member of the society such as individuals,

government, NGOs, social entrepreneurs and others in Sarıyer, which should take its role

in impact creation.

Let’s stimulate action for positive change in Sarıyer.

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References

Adnan Kayıcı - Beekeeping Cooperative

Dilek Karafazlı – SAKEM

Güler Sönmez - Kilyos Kumköy Associaton for Protection of Natural Environment and

Environmental Culture

Güler Sönmez - Sarıyer Micro Credit Center

Levent Pehlivanoğlu - Sarıyer Posta Newspaper

Mahmut Kement - Sarıyer Disabled People Coordination Center

Mehmet Akyüz - İstinye Fishery Cooperative

Nelih Akay - Sarıyer Neighborhood and Villages Women Farmers’ Cooperative

Agricultural Development

Pınar Öncel - Design and Innovation Initiative for Sustainable Living

Seçil Arıkan - Sixs Dots Foundation for the Blinds

Yalçın İpbüken - Lean Institute

Yasemin Daşar - Darüşşafaka Society

www.sariyer.bel.tr

http://sariyer.meb.gov.tr/