Production from women in Van with municipal support

Women living in the Şafak Neighborhood of Van's İpekyolu district applied to the İpekyolu Municipality and asked for support to grow vegetables.

Upon request, officials from the İpekyolu Municipality Women and Family Services Directorate turned a 3-acre plot of land, owned by the municipality, into a garden for women.

In the project carried out by the Municipality, 40 women grow eggplants, peppers, tomatoes and cucumbers in the plots allocated to them.

Women also carry out maintenance tasks such as hoeing of the gardens, which are irrigated with an automatic irrigation system installed by three watchmen appointed by the municipality.

The project, which started last year with 9 women in the Hatuniye Neighborhood and bore fruit, continued in the Şafak Neighborhood this year.

Gülderen Umur, İpekyolu Municipality Women and Family Services Manager, said that they aimed to both increase women's employment and encourage local production with the project. Umur, stating that the project contributes to women economically and socially, said, "Last year, we implemented our first project on Mother's Day in the Hatuniye neighborhood. Later, we decided to continue the same project in every neighborhood. This year, we launched our project in the Şafak neighborhood. This project was implemented with the support of the municipal co-mayors and municipal council members. Our goal is to direct our women to a more ecological life, connect them with the soil, and bring mothers out of their homes and together, even if only for a little while. Our women take the vegetables they produce here to their kitchens. They make their winter drying containers with the vegetables produced here. These gardens contain vegetables like cucumbers, tomatoes, eggplants, and peppers. The demand came from the women. So, we created this garden. There are 40 plots in the garden we created, and each woman gets one plot. The municipality also manages the irrigation system of the gardens. We also provided vegetable seedlings to our women. The women only do the planting and hoeing. In last year's gardens, our women put out their winter drying containers. I hope this year will be better." results are achieved,” he said.

Women hoeing in the garden thanked the mayor and council members for encouraging them to produce.