Akbank Volunteers
We have been realizing social contribution projects with the support of Akbank personnel, our families, and our customers and business partners across Turkey since 2012. We are working in collaboration with local people, non-governmental organizations, and local governments in the communities we are working and living, and are developing new projects for social problems with an aim of being a part of the solution. Within the scope of our volunteering efforts, for the last seven years, we have put into practice a lot of projects on different topics from education to the handicapped, from aid campaigns to healthcare issues. Each year, our volunteering works allow us to reach thousands of people, mostly students, with 40 Akbank Volunteering Ambassadors and almost 1,000 Akbank Volunteers. In line with the requirements of digitalization in every field, we receive requests from teachers and school administrations regarding their educational equipment needs, and we meet these requests both by use of excess computers and with aid projects of Akbank Volunteers. This year, we delivered approximately 500 computers to those in need.
We continued our volunteering efforts under the concept of “Good Form of the Home” despite the pandemic in 2020.
We read tales for kids with cancer as part of the goodness movement “Happy Tales” initiated by Laughter Heals Association (Gülmek İyileştirir Derneği) and gave away fairy tales books to 100 children that are still receiving cancer treatment at hospitals. Within the scope of the “Wish Tree” project of the Hope Foundation for Children with Cancer (Kanserli Çocuklara Umut Vakfı), we delivered 500 Hygiene Kits consisting of personal hygiene products to protect kids and their families. We provided food aids to 250 families before Eid-ul Adha (Sacrifice Festival) in cooperation with Çorbada Tuzun Olsun Association. We supported the projects of and collected donations for young people of Community Volunteers Foundation (Toplum Gönüllüleri Vakfı) in 81 provinces of Turkey by yoga, pilates, or cardio workouts at home.
During Istanbul Marathon in November, we raised donations at an amount of 485,000 TL for the Association for Supporting Contemporary Life (Çağdaş Yaşamı Destekleme Derneği), thanks to our 372 Redrunners who ran for good and 4,941 donors. Akbank Redrunners Team went down in the history of the marathon as the runners’ team that raised the highest amount of donations at a time, reached the largest number of donors, and was the most crowded. With the donations collected, we provided computer and internet access to 108 children and young people in order to eliminate inequality of opportunity in distance education.
As Akbank Volunteers, we continue working towards realizing more volunteering projects in the upcoming period.
Young Volunteers Project
Young Volunteers Project is the name of our project wherein we invite all university students of Turkey to be volunteers in social responsibility projects organized in cooperation with many non-governmental organizations since the year 2015. With this project, we are providing the university (associate degree, undergraduate and postgraduate) students in 18-26 age range with the opportunity to get acquainted with and to take part in volunteering projects of plenty of non-governmental organizations.
Held online due to pandemic this year, we shared with young people information about “how to be a volunteer”, “why become a volunteer”, and “what do NGOs do”, together with 16 NGOs engaged in activities in different fields, in an attempt to raise awareness of these topics. This year, 6,000 young people attended the Young Volunteers Project, which attracted immense attention from young people in the last year, which was manifested by an overflow of applications from the very first days. At the end of the program, we rewarded the participant young people with a certificate.
This year, we held the “Looking for Heroes to Save the World” volunteering summit online on the 16th of November to create a greater awareness of volunteering among young people and encourage them to volunteer. Moderated by İlker Ayrık, the summit provided a platform for Sunay Akın, Ömer Madra, and many other speakers who are experts in their fields to share their knowledge on volunteering and goodness with young people. 500 young people watched the summit live and we gave a certificate of participation to those who followed the summit through sehriniyihali.com. Approximately 500 people watched the record of the Summit on the Akbank YouTube channel.