Project design and one of the things I cherish the most important in the preparation stage of content to choose the elements they internalize about the theory and practice of leadership of our exhibitors and Turkey's first sector-led project of the present study was to bring together the role model towards young women will be with us. I hope that our participants will be able to touch their lives at some point in their career journeys. I would like to thank them for being with us. And I am grateful to all the women who supported our project without hesitation: first of all, our beloved project volunteer team and our Administrative Coordinator - we learned a lot together, our trainers, our guests from sectoral meetings and seminars / workshops, and of course our esteemed mentors through this project. I sincerely believe that we have strengthened and established a valuable support network and that we will continue to hear the outstanding achievements of our participants in the future.
When I first heard about ``Enhancing Women's Leadership Trajectories via Female Role Models`` from Dr. Aslı Mert, I was a 3rd grade student and I was very excited when I heard it. Meeting about 100 different women from different sectors, listening to their experiences and sharing was a separate experience and made me aware of many social, institutional and cultural barriers and problems that I had not noticed before. It was a very enlightening project for me and even motivated me to apply for a graduate program in gender and women's studies. I was already aware of the inequality between gender and gender roles in sociology classes we took at school, but with concrete examples, when I witnessed this situation with real people, I wanted to work on this issue and find solutions. Hopefully, the project has touched the lives of us volunteers and participants to some extent and made a difference. I see myself very lucky in this respect. I know that we will be even stronger with our social networks and even with our sister relations, and therefore I never want to break our communication. We are strong as long as we can support each other. For this beautiful project, I would like to thank Aslı teacher and İrem who provided our coordination, my dear volunteer friends who we cooperate with each other and all the participants from whom I learned lessons from their experiences.
While working with Dr. Aslı Mert, I feel very happy to be a part of this project that I was involved in at the end. As someone who has the opportunity to observe the project period from outside, I would like to share something; As we all know, only because we are women, there are limited roles. Individually, a skinny inner voice tells us how artificial these roles actually are, and not fulfilling those roles also is a right choice. But when women come together, that skinny voice rises and gains power and mobilizes everyone for change. Somehow everyone involved in this project is also becoming an individual ready to take action for change. It was a source of inspiration for me to see women working together in different working groups. I would like to thank the project team and the participants for whom I have been inspired.
Enhancing Women's Leadership Trajectories via Female Role Models``of the future was an inspiration for everyone from volunteers to participants, because it enabled women to share experiences and create a common feminist stance beyond the competitive nature of business life. every sharing that made sense of our effort was very valuable because I believe that this is the only way that gender can be reshaped. I am sure that it is an eternal source of hope for all of us to see the value of being able to stand up against the negative feelings of female relationships that the male-dominated world is trying to impose, united around feelings of sisterhood and supporting each other's achievements. Therefore, I would like to thank all these powerful women and all my colleagues who have contributed to this project, which I am part of with the motivation of living together in a more equal and free world.
Enhancing Women's Leadership Trajectories via Female Role Models`` project
is very instructive for me. Both the participants and our mentor, Miss Demet, added a lot to me about women's business situation. Especially as I listened to the entrepreneurial women who are in my group, the difficulties posed by leaving the corporate life and starting their own business regardless of gender. I also saw the prejudices and barriers they faced in the industry because they were just women, and I understood that leadership should be very strong to start an initiative, because your team is always motivated and you need to lead them, not bossing them. As a young woman and student who would like to start her own business in the future, I can say that taking part in the same process as these enthusiastic and young women passing through the roads I have passed was one of the best training and experiences I have gained. I was very impressed and happy with the support of women throughout the project. Despite the prejudice that there is more competition among women in the workplace, I found that especially the participants in the Entrepreneurship group supported each other at every point. As a person who believes that the concept of sisterhood is to rise together by taking power from each other, I have once again grasped the meaning of sisterhood throughout the ``Enhancing Women's Leadership Trajectories via Female Role Models`` project.
I've always been interested in reading about gender, and I've learned a lot over time. When I read about it, I always wondered, ``What can I do, how can I help someone or myself?`` I saw how we could support each other in this project. I learned new concepts, listened to stories, met many impressive women. Thanks to the real experiences of real women, I have seen how the business world I am not yet involved can be a place for a woman. I had the opportunity to observe how theory could turn into practice. I understood that every change we make in this male-dominated world has a meaning. I've seen how change can begin with one woman and reach hundreds of women. It was very impressive to see that the decision taken by Dr. Aslı Mert ``I will make a project`` touched the lives of hundreds of women. I once again saw how strong women are, from my team-mates to the participants, from the successful women who joined us as speakers to our mentors. The most important thing in my mind about this project is the importance of supporting women. We're strong if we're together.
In my view, leadership means to be able to pave the way to produce collectively in the most efficient ways and to try to lead others to realize their potential. This, of course, necessitates experience and transfer of experience. Since we do not have enough time to make all the mistakes in the world, it seems as if it is an obligation for people of all ages to take the examples from the coming examples. This project was based on the introduction, sharing and transfer of experience. In other words, it aimed to create some kind of “productive encounters which I find infinitely valuable.
In the first phase of the project, in addition to trainings, it was aimed to create a support environment in which women shared their sectoral experiences, injustices they faced and coping mechanisms. In the second stage, we met and learned from each other the leading names in the field. Thanks to the project, my dear Beral Madra, whom I had the opportunity to meet, meet and learn from her, repeated many times in line with her experiences, which is actually very simple but easily forgotten: `` We need to support each other. We need to support each other. There is no other way.
Yaz stajı research assistant rolü için başvurduğum Koç Üniversitesi’nden proje seçmemiz için liste geldiğinde Geleceğin Rol Model Lider Kadınları beni en çok heyecanlandıran proje olmuştu. Bunun en büyük sebebi toplumsal cinsiyet eşitliliği çalışmasının sadece literatürde kalmayıp aksiyona da geçecek bir proje olmasıydı. Bununla ilgili olarak üniversitede aldığım derslerden, medyada okuduğum kaynaklardan ve de çevremdeki insanlardan duyduğum ortak çıkarım cinsiyet rollerinin kalıplaşmış olması üzerineydi ve bununla ilgili aksiyon alabilecek olmak beni çok motive etti. Stajımda Aslı hocanın değerli yönlendirmeleriyle liderliği, iş hayatındaki kadınlara tanınan ayrıcalıkları sektörel bazlı görme fırsatı yakaladım. Bu fırsat üniversite sonrası yol haritamı çizmemde de çok yardımcı oldu. Kadınların iş hayatında “masaya oturmaktan” korkmaması için kurulmuş bu zincirin bir parçası olduğum için çok mutluyum. Umarim benim neslimin kadınları ve erkekleri bu ve bunun gibi devamının geleceğine inandığım çalışmalarla istediğimiz hayatı kurmamıza, yaşamak istediğimiz dünyayı yaratmamıza destek verir.
During the Enhancing Women's Leadership Trajectories via Female Role Models Project, where I took part as an administrative assistant, my mentors, project participants, volunteer friends and of course Dr. Aslı Mert. More than one person completely distracted me from the work that you had already settled in my life, ın you're on your own, do your job yourself '. This project came into my life with the pleasures of asking for help easily, or the fact that it was immediately shut down by another when it made a mistake. After this, I realized the invisible labor through this project. My volunteer friends who have always influenced me with their creative ideas and versatility, who have always given their help to us during the exam / course, and valuable participants, who have taken permission from their work despite the busy work tempo and even travel between cities and come to our remote campus and of course, both personal and professional my beloved Dr. Aslı Mert, who listens to my troubles among all his works. Thank you all. I am very happy to know you and take part in this project.
I have listened to many women's work experiences in their field, the challenges they face and how they are trying to advance themselves in a male-dominated society and order thanks to the ``Enhancing Women's Leadership Trajectories via Female Role Models``. I had the opportunity to see the reflections of leadership in theory and practice. The common message for all of us at the end of this project was “sisterhood.. I understood that this concept should be underlined and that it is important that women leaders support other women first. As women, we must go beyond the imposition of the patriarchal order to ``focus on our shortcomings`` and become more aware of our potential. We should not hesitate to step forward to be courageous and to become a leader. The most important message I have received for myself during this project is that we can reach a society where equality and justice prevail, not men or women, through a common effort and support.
I have been in the project for so long that I find it difficult to look at the project from the outside and make comments. However, the biggest contribution of the project to me that I can say, I can understand the importance of sisterhood. Before the awareness that I lived with the project, I thought that the concept of fellowship without gender discrimination was important.
Within the project, especially in the days of mentoring, industry without distinguishing the experience of women, the position of women in the sector is similar; so that even in each sector and the importance of intersectoral sisterhood, I figured we could break down structural barriers solidarity between the sisters.
Taking part in the project meant contributing to the solution of a problem that affects everyone in the society. For me, I didn't know how the gender inequality I experienced so far was experienced in 10 different sectors. During this time, I listened to the people from different perspectives about how big the problem was and what we could do for a solution. Every training day and seminar gave me new motivations and helped me to find my own understanding of leadership. I understood that the leader should be a model person and a mediator when working for a world that would be good for everyone rather than someone who leads. It is very hopeful to see how much our valued participants, speakers and mentors I know from 10 different sectors are struggling despite all the difficulties, to be together with role models and to be a part of this solidarity network. I hope this social network will continue in the coming years and grow even more. In the future, I will be very happy to hear about the success of my teammates and participants who act like sisters. I would like to thank Dr. Aslı Mert and all our guests for the realization of the project.
When I started the project, I had the motivation to participate in a study where many women working in different sectors could network with each other and receive mentoring. I decided to take part in this valuable project of the university I graduated from as a result of witnessing all women's efforts in their careers to progress in their invisible boundaries called ``glass ceiling``. I work with women of different sectors and ages in 20 countries. I believe that this project paves the way for the targeted women to reach their goals with a more developed network through sharing and sharing experiences.
Even though the career steps seem to be an individual journey, I hope that projects such as Enhancing Women's Leadership Trajectories via Female Role Models will be indispensable for sustainable success and happiness when we consider the effects on their country, environment and all humanity in terms of their results.
I would like to express that I am very happy to have the chance to observe and experience that all stakeholders involved in this project are instrumental in realizing that they have a common ground and hope for a better future.
In September 2018, I was excited to be involved in a project that would have a concrete share in empowering women while participating in the ``Enhancing Women's Leadership Trajectories via Female Role Models``. It is also a great pleasure to witness that all my team mates share this enthusiasm and to meet them in this project. Considering that equality is an indispensable condition not only for women's individual development, but also for the full development of society, I believe that every effort we make in this project is very valuable.
In addition to being a great opportunity for all of us to come together with many valuable names that we hosted for seminars and trainings within the scope of the project, we became partners in the story and the increasing solidarity of each of our participants throughout the project. I feel very fortunate to be in an environment where sisterhood, which is the most important outcome of the project for me, takes place.
Now, as I approach the closing day, I have the sweet pride of being a part of a network that has contributed to supporting this solidarity in business and being a part of this great project.
The reason I am so excited about this project is that it is a very big step towards achieving gender equality and I am slowly starting to work on this issue, and I am curious about the leadership and myself one day to become a leader and make an impact on my own environment and perhaps the world, for wanting to find solutions for social problems. For this, I wanted to get the information about the sectors first hand while I couldn't decide which sector to go on. In my internship, I have seen in-depth leadership, sectors, sisterhood and gender discrimination. I realized that we have a lot of possibilities in ourselves, and choosing a direction and working in that direction is something that a leader should not do, interdisciplinary work and open-mindedness, we can realize many opportunities ahead and make ourselves the best leadership possible. This is a long journey for all of us and we are not afraid to make mistakes on this path, we must accept our mistakes and try to change and improve ourselves through them.