Turkey’s Engineer Girls project, which provides scholarships and education for girls studying engineering at universities, starts its high school programme.

Ongoing for two years, “Turkey’s Engineer Girls” (TEG) project is an innovative project implemented by the partnership of UNDP and Limak Holding to increase the number of women engineers in Turkey. The Project provides girls who choose to become engineers with scholarships during university studies and various opportunities of training to develop themselves. Every engineer girl admitted to the program is assigned a mentor to guide her. The Project is considered a resounding scholarship for two years in Turkey.

“Turkey’s Engineer Girls” project has started this year to engage in high schools to provide pre-university support to girls who want to become engineers. As a first step of this new programme, training seminars were organised for school administrators and counsellors. The first seminar was held on 20-22 March in Kemer, Antalya, with participation of more than 100 school principals and counsellors working in high schools.

During the training, innovative methods were introduced to school principals and counsellors which would help them guide girls who wanted to become engineers.

Box game called “Your Decision” that informs high school students on university choices.

New systems which enable people to view engineering wonders using Virtual Reality (VR) technology.

The training was delivered in two phases, one for school administrators and another for school counsellors focusing on many topics such as gender equality, vocational orientation of persons, being a woman engineer etc.

“When we had difficulty in recruiting women engineers to Limak, we found out in a further study of statistics that this was a widespread problem in our country and even in the world; and decided to be a part of the solution” said Ms. Sevil Server Koç, Corporate Relations Director of Limak Foundation.

“When a woman become a medical doctor, she is thought to be ‘not working until late hours’ but why do people think that a woman engineer is so working?” asked Ms. Emine Ülkü Sarıtaş, Ph.D. Bilkent University, Electrics&Electronics Department.

The box game “Your Decision” that was introduced to school counsellors to have their students play was the captive part of the seminars. In the game, players in the roles of women engineers in six specialties tried to respond to the problems in the mindset of an engineer. Some players had challenging times while trying to find the fine balance between time, quality and budget.

Implemented in cooperation with the Ministry of Family and Social Policies, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and Limak Foundation, “Turkey’s Engineer Girls” Project aspires to demonstrate that women too can become engineers by eliminating gender inequalities and stereotypes in professional life. The Project continues with scholarships and role model exercises provided to girls studying engineering.