Turkcell Women's Initiative, 'Strong Women, Strong Turkey' at the UN

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Mar 07, 2013, 06:03 ET

ISTANBUL, Turkey, March 7, 2013 /PRNewswire/ --

Turkcell Group Chief Corporate Affairs Officer Koray Ã–ztÃ¼rkler and the UN Global Compact Members (PRNewsFoto/Turkcell)

Turkcell (NYSE:TKC, ISE: TCELL), Turkey's leading communications and technology company Turkcell represented Turkey on the panel organized by the UN for the Women's Empowerment Principles - WEPs event on March 5^th. During this event, Chief Corporate Affairs Officer Koray Öztürkler presented Turkcell as an example for leading global companies, as well as the first Turkish Technology Company to challenge and reduce the inequalities that women face, through its corporate social responsibility projects with an emphasis on the principle of 'Empowering the Women'.

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The 5^th panel, which this year was hosted by the Austrian and Swedish governments, was attended by UN country affiliates, leading businessmen, academic scholars and NGO representatives. Speaking on the panel, Öztürkler stated that: 'It is an honor to represent Turkey with Turkcell's pioneering social responsibility projects at an event focused 'solely' on Women. Providing better standards for our Women helps guarantee the future of our children. In an attempt to provide equal opportunities in every aspects of life, we stand by the women through our latest technology, and corporate social responsibility projects, as well as by generating employment opportunities. Since the last time we were here 2 years ago for our Snowdrops project, we have continued to support and initiate many other projects such as; Women Power to the Economy, regarding equality at the workplace, and the Zero Tolerance of Violence against Women project, in cooperation with the Ministry of Family and Social Policies, as well as Human Resources practices, which position Turkcell as a unique company that cares about Women. Once again, we are honored to represent Turkey at such an event with our vision of 'Strong Women, Strong Turkey.'

Panel participants were able to see the successful results with impressive numbers achieved by Turkcell:

Snowdrops: The project was developed jointly in 2000 with the Association in Support of Contemporary Living to provide equal educational opportunities for underprivileged girls. So far, over 100,000 scholarships have been granted. Each year 10,000 young Turkish women continue to receive both financial and moral support.
Women Power to the Economy: Together with the Turkish Foundation for Waste Reduction ("TISVA") and the Turkey Grameen Microfinance Program, Turkcell has initiated the "Women Power to the Economy." It aims to reach out to 100,000 women within 4 years. Turkcell has made an initial donation of TRY400,000 to boost the economic participation of women. Additionally, Turkcell organized a gala dinner attended by Turkish business leaders where the honorary guest was the Nobel Prize winning Bangladeshi economist Muhammad Yunus to raise an additional TRY400,000 for the campaign.
''Zero'’ Tolerance of Violence against Women: In an attempt to raise social awareness of this sad reality, which damages family unity and hurts society at large, a national 360 degree awareness campaign was launched.
Employment: Turkcell human Resources policies enable women to be promoted to managerial positions, including senior executive level of Turkcell's executive level managers 42% are women. The total number of women working at Turkcell makes up 49% of our employees overall.

ABOUT TURKCELL

Turkcell is the leading communications and technology company in Turkey, with 35.1 million subscribers as of December 31, 2012. Turkcell is a leading regional player, with market leadership in five of the nine countries in which it operates with its approximately 69.2 million subscribers as of December 31, 2012. It has become one of the first among the global operators to have implemented HSPA+. It has achieved up to 43.2 Mbps speed using the Dual Carrier technology, and is continuously working to provide the latest technology to its customers, e.g. 84 Mbps in the near future. Turkcell Superonline, a wholly owned subsidiary of Turkcell, is the one and only telecom operator to offer households fiber broadband connection at speeds of up to 1,000 Mbps in Turkey. As of December 31, 2012, Turkcell population coverage is at 99.17% in 2G and 84.02% in 3G. Turkcell reported a TRY10.5 billion (US$5.9 billion) revenue with total assets of TRY18.7 billion (US$10.5 billion) as of December 31, 2012. It has been listed on the NYSE and the ISE since July 2000, and is the only NYSE-listed company in Turkey. Read more athttp://www.turkcell.com.tr