HeForShe Turkey published the “Guidelines for Gender-responsive Sports Organizations”

UN Women Turkey issued a roadmap for sports organizations on how to be gender-responsive.

UN Women Turkey launched the “Guidelines for Gender-responsive Sports Organizations” – a step by step guide on how to develop strategies to become a gender-responsive sports organization and for the empowerment of women and girls in and through sports.

UN Women Turkey developed the Guidelines for Gender-responsive Sports Organizations based on UN Women’s global Sports for Generation Equality initiative, which suggests a six-step framework to make gender equality a lived reality in and through sports. The Guidelines, which are a first of their kind in Turkey, provide a menu of actions and indicators to become an inclusive and gender responsive sports organization.

The Guidelines are a product of a multi-stakeholder participatory process, including a multinational Advisory Group led by UN Women with substantial contributions from national and international experts in the field of sports and gender equality. The Guidelines are prepared within the partnership of HeForShe Turkey and Fenerbahçe Sports Club, which is supported by Tüpraş, one of Koç Holding’s, companies.

The launch of the Guidelines for Gender-responsive Sports Organizations was held on June 17th with an online event:

The launch was hosted by Sinem Aydın, HeForShe Coordinator of UN Women Turkey. The launch started with the opening remarks of Alia El-Yassir, UN Women Regional Director for Europe and Central Asia, elaborating on UN Women’s vision for partnering with the sports ecosystem to advance gender equality. “We need the world of sport to step up to lead by example and address the gender inequalities that persist within sports institutions.” said Alia El-Yassir during her opening remark.

A technical presentation of the Guidelines was made by the author Prof. Canan Koca, Hacettepe University Faculty of Sport Sciences and Chairperson of the Executive Board, of Turkish Association of Sport and Physical Activity for Women (KASFAD). “All stakeholders in the sports ecosystem need to cooperate with a gender responsive approach to build an equal future,” said Koca.

The launch event followed by two panel discussions featuring very important actors of the sports ecosystem worldwide. Representatives from UNESCO, Fenerbahçe Sports Club, UN Women, FIFA and IOC have discussed how the Guidelines are a tool to implement the Principles of Sports for Generation Equality in the first panel, which was moderated by UN Women’s Head of Programmes Zeliha Ünaldı.

The launch was concluded with the closing remarks of Asya Varbanova, UN Women Country Director of Turkey, thanking everyone who took part in this launch and highlighting the next steps that UN Women will take towards partnering with the sports ecosystem to advance gender equality in and through sports.

Full version and In-brief version of the Guidelines can be found here: www.sportsforgenderequality.org

For more information please contact:

Sinem Aydın, HeForShe Turkey Coordinator sinem.aydin@unwomen.org

İpek Naz Çınar, Communications Assistant  ipek.cinar@unwomen.org