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Garanti Bank in Istanbul, Turkey has won the Stevie Award for Corporate Social Responsibility Program of the Year in Europe in The 2010 International Business Awards. Martha Hooper, representative for The Stevie Awards in Turkey, sent us the following report on how the bank is encouraging women entrepreneurs in Turkey.
 What could be better than a corporate responsibility program that focuses on social issues aligned with economic needs? Turkey’s Garanti Bank has done
just that by creating its Women Entrepreneurship Program: a program that aims to promote entrepreneurship for women while at the same time furthering the bank’s goal to help improve the overall business performance of its customers.
This program has been hugely successful in helping to enhance the business capacities of women entrepreneurs in Turkey, and is providing additional economic benefits throughout the communities where these women operate. But what motivated Garanti to accomplish this achievement?
Conspicuous in their Absence
Garanti has sponsored conferences for small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) for a number of years. During these conferences, it became clear to Garanti that businesswomen were conspicuous by their absence from the Turkish business world. The bank came to the logical conclusion that in order to fill this deficiency in the Turkish business community, women needed more support.
Research conducted by Garanti’s SME Banking division, under the leadership of Executive Vice President Nafiz Karadere, revealed that financial support, education for professional development, and encouragement were just some of the factors needed to increase the numbers of women entrepreneurs and their contribution to the Turkish economy.
Garanti became the first bank in Turkey to classify women entrepreneurs as a distinct business segment. Today, Garanti reaches women entrepreneurs through SME Customer Relationship Managers at Garanti branches in 76 cities.
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What item of news recently caught your eye and why?
Oceana, the largest international organization focused solely on ocean conservation, has recently launched a two-month research expedition from Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The expeditions aim is to assess the long-term impacts of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill on the Gulf of Mexico and its marine life as well as to document areas that could be impacted by the spill if oil becomes caught in certain sea currents.