Fenerbahce Sports Club has joined forces with HeForShe movement led by the Women’s Unit of the United Nations. Based on the cooperation made possible with the support of TUPRAŞ (A giant Turkish Company) Fenerbahçe will take a series of steps with the motto “WE ARE EQUAL”, until the end of 2019. During this cooperation which was first announced with the match Fenerbahçe played against Alanyaspor in Turkish Super Football League, the team will carry HeForShe logos on their right arms.
Based on the campaign, Fenerbahçe will give messages of “gender equality”, implement women and child friendly stadium practices, and approach with zero tolerance for all forms of discrimination against women and girls. Moreover, gender equality trainings will be given at the club and players, athletes, technical team and club staff will serve in solidarity, as spokespeople of the issue on every occasion.
Elizabeth Nyamayaro, UN Deputy Secretary General and Chief Consultant to Executive Director of UN Women’s Unit as well as Global Director for HeForShe movement also attended the event at which Fenerbahçe Football Team introduced the shirts with HeForShe logo on the right arm. Only specific to this match, footballers also had magenta shirt numbers on the back of their uniforms. They came on to the pitch carrying a banner that read “EQUAL TOGETHER”.
Elizabeth Nyamayaro who delivered a speech said, "With its HeForShe Movement, the UN Women's Unit invites men around the globe to be advocates of gender equality shoulder to shoulder with women. Since 2014, the movement has been working to spread the idea that men can play an important role in ensuring gender equality”. She also emphasized that sport was a powerful tool for women's empowerment, improving self-confidence of young girls and socialization of young people as well.
Ali KOC, the President of Fenerbahçe Club, stated that they would like to be mentioned as a club which touches the community and contributes to bringing the quality of life to a better point. Reminding that different sports clubs in the world have been working with social responsibility projects and non-governmental organizations in the world, Koç said “As far as we know, there is no commitment and scope of this size in the area of gender equality. With the contribution of sport we are targeting to live through a transformation in the direction of gender equality in our country and the world. We will clean up our own garden first. After we have organized our own area, we then aim to spread it to our community and make it a reflex for them”.
The project is scheduled to continue until the end of 2019.
