It all started in summer 2015. C@rma was brainstorming on the idea of a Pro Bono competition and Engie, one of the largest energy company, was looking for ways to boost the leadership skills of its employees.
In Turkey, ENGIE is one the biggest foreign investors in the Turkish energy market. The Group is one of the leading natural gas distributors, and also owns two gas-fired power plants (CCGTs) as an Independent Power Producer (IPP). It operates in Turkey with 380 staff members and put emphasis on the personal growth of its employees.
When we present the idea of the competition to Engie, they liked the idea of assigning their staff on a real life project for 4 months. It would give these professionals the opportunity to build relations internally and develop their soft skills working with a Civil Society Organisation ("CSO"). It is already a challenge to work together within one same company although everyone shares the same values but coming from the private sector and working with civil society really means going outside one zone of comfort, learning new terminology, new challenge, new ways to solve these challenges.
Engie chose Pro Pono as one of its leadership development program.
Together, we took the time to first identify what kind of CSO would suit Engie.
As C@rma, we identified a couple of them and discuss with the CSOs the specific challenges they are facing. We scoped these potential projects and presented them to Engie.
Engie chose to work with TCYOV.
Turkiye Cocuklara Yeniden Ozgurluk Vakfi (Youth Re-autonomy Foundation of Turkey "TCYOV") is an Istanbul based foundation set up in 1992. They have two main activities, one is developing kindergarten for children born in jails ("iceride cocuk var), the other one is supporting children at risk while being in jail or after incarceration through projects and dissertations, defence and field studies.
Their main challenge was to change the perception of the general public towards incarcerated children. Most of the population consider it to be the fault of the children if these children are in jail. This had to change.
We identified different ways to change that perception: an activity report, more active and focus social media and a targeted travelling picture exhibition.
We sat together in February for a full day learning more about each other, about the way we will manage the project and spending time refining the scope and establishing a weekly planning.
As C@rma, we think that a 4 months project is ideal. It is long enough to really support the CSO but, because of its clear deadline, it keeps the momentum of the project and no one gets "bored" by it.
During the 4 months, Isil Arisoy Kaya and Cecile Valigny managed the project on behalf of C@rma on a pro Bono basis. On a weekly basis, they were making sure the deliverables were aligned with what was planned in the initial scoping. Everyone gathered on a monthly basis to make sure the deliverables were what was expected.
Mid June, we finished the project and shared lessons learnt. As foreseen the main challenge had been the different working style between the corporate side and the CSO's one and we had to align a couple of times but at the end, everyone understood better how the other were working and some nice friendship were built.
As deliverables, the Pro Bono consultants provided the activity report to TCYOV in Turkish and in English. Engie decided to fund it as well.
Engie team also organised 3 picture exhibitions in Engie offices and reported the impact of these images on general public and the change in perception towards children in jail through a survey conducted, and planned a social media campaign for TCYOV.
“It was a pleasure to work with C@rma and TCYOV on the Pro Bono Volunteering Project. During the whole process, C@rma assisted us in the best possible way in every situation, disagreements and drawbacks. The building of the bridge between us and TCYOV, the trainings and the support we got on the motivation of the team was truly a relief. We are very excited about our next project with C@rma in which we are currently in the process of planning.” Eftal Efecinar, Communication, Engie