Sabanci Foundation Expands Purple Certificate Program

Sabancı Foundation is expanding the Purple Certificate Program that it has been carrying out for 10 years with the aim of raising awareness about gender equality in education within the scope of the United Nations Joint Program. The Foundation will extend the activities realized with high school teachers within the Purple Certificate Program to different levels of the education system.

Sabancı Foundation General Manager Zerrin Koyunsağan announced that the Purple Certificate Program would continue with the cooperation of Sabancı University, the Ministry of National Education, Bilgi University Center for Sociology and Education Studies (SEÇBİR) and Child Studies Unit (ÇOÇA) as of 2016. “We are starting to implement, at all levels of education, the Purple Certificate Program, a component of the United Nations Joint Program to whose local administration and NGO efforts we have been contributing in order to improve human rights of women and girls within a gender equality perspective. Thanks to our 10 years of experience in the previous program, we concluded that we first need to increase our awareness about fundamental rights to be able to take innovative steps in education. We greatly value not only increasing the awareness of teachers about gender equality but also raising students as individuals aware of their rights. To this end, we will strive to increase the awareness of students as well as teachers and teacher candidates”, stated Koyunsağan.

To be implemented at different levels of the education system

Within the scope of the Purple Certificate Program, there are plans for extensive works that will raise awareness about gender equality and be implemented in education through four groups, namely primary school teachers, high school teachers, students from education faculties, university and middle school students.

· High school teacherswill receive gender equality training. Furthermore, awareness seminars will be organized to ensure that teachers and school administration have the same level of awareness.

· Gender equality and discrimination activities will be carried out with students from education faculties.

· In workshops on raising awareness about gender equality, materials suitable for the primary school level will be developed with primary school teachers.

· The awareness of university students andmiddle school students about gender equality will be raised as a part of the Gender Equality Through Games Workshops.

About the Purple Certificate

Within the Purple Certificate Program which is a component of the United Nations Joint Program, Sabancı University academics gave gender equality training to high school teachers in order that these teachers can make their students embrace a gender equality awareness. At the end of the training, 349 teachers were qualified to receive the Purple Certificate. The teachers receiving training began to develop projects on gender equality and incorporated practices that increase the awareness of students about the issue into their course content. So far the Program has created an awareness in students through over 3,000 high school teachers who attended awareness seminars. It enabled teachers to recognize their own transformative powers and develop a long-lasting and enduring perspective about gender.

Sabancı Foundation’s Activities in Education

Making social investments in education since it was founded in 1974, Sabancı Foundation built over 120 institutions in 78 locations across Turkey. There are more than 80 institutions such as schools, dormitories, teacher’s lodges, libraries and universities built by the Foundation nationwide in the field of education. In addition, Sabancı Foundation encourages achievements in education by granting scholarships and awards to university students. In order to support the youth’s education, Sabancı Foundation has so far given more than 41,000 grants and presented over 1,000 awards for achievements in education, arts and sports.