Our board meeting and iftar dinner, which took place on April 3, 2023, was held at the headquarters of our corporate member, Denizbank. We express our sincere gratitude to our Founding Advisory Board Member and the CEO of Denizbank, Hakan Ateş, who has been with us since the establishment of our association and has been the biggest supporter of our education programs. We also would like to thank the General Manager of Intertech, which is a technology subsidiary of Denizbank, and our Member of the Board of Directors Member, Ömer Uyar, for all their support in making this event happen.
The Wtech family came together for the first time after the earthquakes that occurred on February 6th, 2023. During the Board Meeting and Iftar Dinner, we had the opportunity to strategize, socialize, and discuss how to provide sustainable support to the disaster area with our slogan “We Are Strong Together.”
The Woman in Technology Association distributed 150 tents and fully-equipped disaster relief packages to 1,100 families and 10,000 people in Hatay during the first phase of our disaster relief efforts. During her speech at the iftar dinner, Zehra Öney, the Founding President of the Woman in Technology Association, shared a video outlining the organization’s disaster relief efforts and thanked its corporate members for their support. Öney expressed her gratitude, stating that the devastation caused by the earthquake was only fully understood upon visiting the affected area. Öney said, “This disaster is a very large destruction that can only be understood when you go to the disaster area. I thank you all for giving us the strength and courage to do this job, which we have done on behalf of all of us. I think we can say that we are here with the satisfaction of fulfilling our duty in the best way possible.”
Ayşe Şule Bilgiç, a clinical psychologist and educator, who was born in Gölbaşı, Adıyaman, spoke during the dinner and said: “I visited all the streets where I used to play as a child, and now none of them exist. The first thing I noticed when I went there was that we can only achieve this recovery by working together. There is a very unusual situation here, and unusual approaches are needed to deal with this,” she said. “The assistance provided by Wtech was very effective in terms of psychosocial support. Going there in-person, listening to the people, creating a space where they can share their pain, saying that ‘we are there with them,’ and responding to their urgent needs is the most important type of psychosocial support that can be provided in the region at the moment.” Bilgiç added.
Öney also talked about the Mobile Academy project that the association will launch in Hatay, which will reach 11 provinces in the disaster area. Öney said, “Now we have our next task. Our core area of focus is education. Therefore, we want to educate children, young people, and women affected by the earthquakes with a special campus project. Above all, we want to alleviate their suffering and offer them psychological support.”
The Mobile Academy will function as a multifunctional, and technological space for education, art, sports, social activities, and research and development over the next two years. The campus will also serve as a venue for speeches and various social events. It will not only provide hope for Hatay’s recovery, but also will create educated and strong role models with a global perspective in the disaster area.
