Voluntary Projects
As Yesim Textile gives priority to giving back what it takes from society within a highly developed sense of Corporate Social Responsibility, the company has realized numerous voluntary projects. Beyond those voluntary projects designed mainly for the firm’s own employees, the social responsibility projects supported by Yesim Textile within the context of its own corporate objectives and missions can be grouped onto four categories.
Employees
Yesim Textile highly values the personal development of its employees as well. For this reason, it has started social activity clubs with the help of volunteer employees. At these social activity clubs, self-development of employees is promoted and awareness for volunteering is created and popularized within the organization.
The World of Butterfly
Yesim Textile Women and Children's Club and Uludağ Soroptimist Club have actualized a project called "The World of the Butterfly" with the purpose of spreading awareness in Yesim's women in the topics of education, health and self-growth in 2013. In order to increase women's awareness, The World of Butterfly project, with the slogan "If the woman changes, society changes", performed activities in three main categories: "Women and Health", "Women and Law", and "Women and Family/ Personal development". There are many workshops ranging from legal rights of women to correct use of nutrition within the scope of the project. The workshops are assisted by many activities taking place at the company and by voluntary consulting by the members of Uludağ Soroptimist Club for Yesim's women.
Every 2 months an e-newsletter is published in Turkish and English about all the activities in the project. In order to promote the project and increase visilibility, Facebook is actively used sharing tools utilized both in English and Turkish.
This successful project in action since 2013 was selected for a grant of 5.000 euros from the Soroptimist International Europe Action Fund in 2015 due to it being sustainable, creating value in women's lives and supporting their development.
The project is currently maintained for The Educational Volunteers Foundation of Turkey (TEGV) and Panayır Şükrü Şankaya Elementary School's mothers.
Our Equal World
The World of Butterfly project has been expanding its area of influence since 2019 and continues its way under the name of "Our Equal World" with the works carried out for both women and men within Yeşim Textile. The project, which started with the launch meeting attended by artist Tuba Ünsal, known for her Gender Equality works, continues to organize awareness talks for female and male employees under the roof of Yeşim.
Equality at home and work
Yeşim Textile, which is one of the companies that employes a great number of women under one roof in Turkey, launches a new project called "Equality at home and work" project in order to provide gender equality at work place and develop a work culture which intolerates violence against women. Yeşim Textile which has been chosen as one of the 17 pilot companies in Turkey aims to raise an awareness among its employees about the issue with its "Equality at Home and Work" project prepared by Sabancı University Administration Forum with the cooperation of Turkish Industrialists' and Businessmen's Association and the United Nation Population Fund (UNFPA) with the support of Sabancı Foundation for "Workplace Policies Development and Application Guide Related to Domestic Violence aganist women".
Two representatives of Yeşim Textile attended with others from 17 companies in Turkey the seminars given by Sabancı University Institutional Administrative Forum about "the concept of gender equality", " types of violence", "legal framework" and " training skills". Within the scope of " Equality at home and work" all of the employees will be trained in accordance with these trainings about gender equality. Besides to give directions to these studies, also a commitee was constituted called as "Gender Equality Commitee” in which manavers and representatives of union within the company. It is aimed to constitute a system which will direct the units to give psychologic and legal support to employees who are exposed to violence at home or work place in the studies of this commitee's leadership. Within all these studies Yeşim Textile will cooperate with Mor Salkım Women' s Solidarity Association especially for women who are exposed to violence.
Wishing Tree
Within the scope of the “Wish Tree” project, Yeşim volunteers receive gifts with their campaigns at the beginning of the year and share the happiness of the children who are treated under LÖSEV / LÖDER. All gifts purchased are distributed to children at the New Year's Eve party organized by LÖSEV / LÖDER, as well as delivered to the homes and hospital rooms of children with leukemia.
Run For Good
The tradition of running for good, which started under the leadership of Yeşim Textile Production Director Kerim Bayram in 2017, continued with the establishment of the Yeşim Running Team in 2018. The Yeşim Running Team, consisting of volunteers from Yeşim, runs for the Turkish Education Foundation (TEV) - Şükrü Şankaya Education Fund project in the Istanbul Marathon. Yeşim supports university students' education expenses with the donations of its employees and all stakeholders.
Do Good, Make Difference
Yeşim volunteers donate their income by organizing a charity event within the scope of the "Do good, make a difference" event organized since 2018 under the leadership of the Environment and Social Responsibility Club to meet the needs of another school every year. While the income of the first charity was spent as a conference hall at the Panayır Şükrü Şankaya Primary School, the project "People First: We Support Generations of Heartfelt Activities", which was initiated to raise awareness of volunteering and social entrepreneurship among high school students, was financed with the donation collected in 2019.
In Yeşim, there is a bone team of 30 volunteers who show their support in social responsibility projects. The volunteer team is made up of Yeşim people, who wholeheartedly embrace this job from every member, especially social club leaders and senior executives. Our stakeholders are our biggest supporters in all our projects.
Yeşim Is Removing Barriers For The Disabled
Yeşim Textile, which has carried out many human-oriented projects with its social responsibility perspective, has added a new one to these works. The employees of the garment department of the company participated in the course in 2018 in order to communicate better with the hearing-impaired employees working in the department, and were entitled to receive a sign language certificate approved by the Ministry of Education.
Blood Donation Campaign
Yeşim volunteers gave blood regularly in recent years, giving hope to those in need. Under the leadership of Yeşim Textile Apparel Department, Yeşim people donate blood and stem cells with the blood donation campaign organized by the Yeşim Environment and Social Responsibility Club.
Sport
Yesimspor Club
Yesimspor Club was founded on 24th January 2003 in order to provide wider possibilities for sporting activities for the young people of Bursa, and to nurture the team’s own basketball players of tomorrow. Yesimspor has enjoyed considerable success in Bursa, recognized by numerous awards and medals obtained at national level.
Şükrü Şankaya Football School
Through moral and material support given to the Sukru Sankaya Football School set up by the Bursaspor Professional Footballers Association, hundreds of children have been given the chance to play sports under professional conditions. In addition, children of Yeşim Textile employees can benefit from the school free of charge within the quota determined every year.
Environment
Yeşim's social responsibility projects on the environment, which is a non-governmental organization in Turkey with TEMA assign several successful signature is implemented. Among the most important of these projects are the adoption of Şükriye Village, Şükrü Şankaya Memorial Forest and the Minik Tema project implemented in the kindergarten.
Joint projects with TEMA
1- Twin Village Project - Sukriye Village – 2000
2- Sukru Sankaya Commemoration Forest - 2006
3- Friends of Recycling Schools Project – 2007
4- Let’s Avert Global Warming - 2007
Education
TEV-Şükrü Şankaya Education Scholarship
Yesim Textile realized the Sukru Sankaya Education Scholarship project under the leadership of its Social Responsibility Club in cooperation with the Turkish Education Foundation (TEV). The project aims to realize the aims of one of the founders of Yesim Textile, Sukru Sankaya, who attached great importance to matters of education. Under the slogan “Every step taken for education changes our life”, the Sukru Sankaya Educational Scholarship is a source of hope to successful university students experiencing economic difficulties. The fund is replenished in an organized manner through the support of Yesim Textile employees as well as the company’s customers and suppliers.
Şükrü Şankaya Primary School and Anatolian High School
Yesim Textile, which founded the Sukru Sankaya Primary School and Anatolian High School founded, provides moral and material assistance every year to support the educational work of these establishments.
"People First - We Support the Work done with the Heart for Generations"
With the exemplary work created by the cooperation of Yeşim Textile, SosyalBen Academy and Şükrü Şankaya Anatolian High School, a new project has been started at Şükrü Şankaya Anatolian High School as of October 2019 with the name of "We Support People First - From the Heart for Generations". With the project, it is aimed to bring a life-long sustainable responsibility to the young people in high school by combining the philanthropy understanding of the late Şükrü Şankaya, one of our company founders, with the awareness of social responsibility and volunteering. After placing this model in high schools all over Turkey in Bursa Project "People First" is aimed at giving lessons under the name of social entrepreneurship.
Sharing with the Community
Global Compact Initiative Principles
In addition to these projects, Yeşim Tekstil has also become the first apparel and textile firm to sign on to UN Global Compact Network in 2006, agreeing to comply with the initiative's international principles concerning human rights, labor standards and the environment. Yeşim Tekstil has been regularly reporting all of the work it has been doing in areas of social responsibility and social harmony as a part of this voluntary network. You can reach these reports at:
Yesim Textile has taken an active role in efforts to recruit more companies to sign onto the Global Compact Initiative as a member of the board of directors at Global Compact Turkey since 2014.
Women's Empowerment Principles (WEPs)
Yesim Textile has voluntarily signed on to take an active part in "Women's Empowerment Principles (WEPs) co-founded by UN Women and UN Global Compact in 2015, and thus has made a promise to put greater efforts into promoting gender equality and empowerment of women in business and society, and report these efforts every year.
Women's Empowerment Bursa Platform
Women's Empowerment Bursa Platform that established in cooperation with Yeşim, Bursa Businesswomen and Executives Association (BUİKAD), Bursa Industrialists and Businesspeople Association (BUSIAD) and Turkey Quality Association (KalDer), invites the business world in Bursa to become a signatory to Global Compact and Women's Empowerment Principles. Platform affiliated with the UN Global Compact, conducts awareness raising activities on women's empowerment with 34 member companies.
