Women's Organizations and Organizations Collection Promotion Meeting

Representatives of women's organizations and members of the press came together at the introductory meeting held at the Library on Tuesday, November 22, 2022, within the scope of the “Women's Organizations and Organizations Collection Digitization, Cataloging, Online Access Project” of the Women's Works Library and Information Center Foundation.

Since February 2022, with the support of the Consulate General of Sweden in Istanbul, European Endowment for Democracy (EED) and Protel A.Ş. It is planned to be made available to open access after the digitalization/cataloging studies and the controls to be made within the scope of KVKK.

After the piano recital given by Elif Candaş Çevik, the meeting started with the opening speech of Birsen Talay Keşoğlu, Chairman of the Board of the Foundation. Birsen Talay Keşoğlu, who emphasized the importance of preserving the documents on women's history in the archives and collections of the Women's Works Library and bringing them together with the researcher, made a call to women's organizations and mentioned the necessity of archiving the documents produced by women's organizations in terms of transferring the studies to the present/future and their visibility.

After reading the messages of the Istanbul Swedish Consul General Peter Ericson and the Turkish Women's Union Chairman Sema Kendirci, who could not attend the meeting but sent a message, the invited speakers were Aylin Nazlıaka (Chairman of the Women's Branch of the Republican People's Party); Elif Esen (Deva Party's Head of Women's Policies); Canan Arın (Founding Member of the Purple Roof Women's Shelter Foundation); Enif Yavuz Dipşar (Head of Social Affairs Department of Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality); Rümeysa Çamdereli (Founding Member of Havle Women's Association); Nazan Moroğlu (Istanbul Women's Organizations Union Coordinator); Hülya Gülbahar (Member of the KEKBMV Board of Directors); Fidan Ataselim (Representative of the We Will Stop Femicide Platform); Hilal Gençay (Women's Human Rights New Solutions Association); Aynur Saraç (Turkish University Women's Association Vice President); Nuray Karaoğlu (President of the Association for Supporting Women Candidates) and Yasemin Öz (Kaos GL) took the floor.

Aylin Nazlıaka stated that the Foundation is a memory place that hosts women's memory and that it should be supported and stated that they donated digital documents related to the work carried out by the CHP women's branches to the Foundation. In her speech, Nazan Moroğlu emphasized the importance of archiving women's documents and the work carried out by the Foundation in this direction, saying that "memory is like a sieve, but women's memory will live here alive and be carried to the future". Rümeysa Çamdereli pointed out the importance of having the documents of Havle Women's Association, as a newly established women's organization, in the collections of the Foundation.

IMM City Council President Tülin Hadi, Turkish Soroptimist Clubs Federation's Balat Cultural Center head Nilgün Kıvırcık, PEN Turkey president Zeynep Oral, various press representatives and a large audience attended the meeting.