The Association for Supporting Contemporary Living (ÇYDD) and Mercedes-Benz Turk started the program called ‘’Each of Our Girls Is a Star’’ in 2004.

The program that is in its 18 th year began in 17 provinces with 200 girls and it continues to grow and gain strength. It aims to empower women socially and economically.

This year, ÇYDD Executive Committee member Prof. Dr. Cihan Tansel Demirci who is in charge of the Scholarship Unit and Mercedes-Benz Türk Executive Committee President Süer Sülün brought 25 Star Girls together at the traditional breakfast they hosted on June 23, 2022.

The Star Girls were from Adana, Antep, Kırşehir, Samsun and Çanakkale. Prof. Dr. Cihan Tansel Demirci, ÇYDD Vice-President Adv. Sedat Durna and Mercedes-Benz Türk Executive Committee President Süer Sülün shared the current information on the ‘’Each of Our Girls Is a Star’’ program at the meeting with the attendees. When Prof. Dr. Demirci spoke, he said, ‘’We started on our journey together with the Mercedes-Benz Türk family to educate female students and we moved forward by helping young girls obtain the power they deserve in any field; by seeing that women have equal opportunity in social and economic settings where traditionally men are privileged. The project that was started 18 years ago with 200 students now receives support not only from Mercedes-Benz Türk but also from its franchises, subsidiary industries, and Turkish workers. With this support, we have reached out to 6 thousand female high school and 850 female university students from 60 provinces of Turkey.’’

President Süer Sülün also spoke and he said: “All our efforts are to support the sustainable development of Turkey, to make our young generations strong, and to build a better world. Our youth carry the energy which will shape the future of our county. We are very happy that we are helping our youth with all our accumulated experience and our resources. We are #daimayanındayız (always with) the young generations of Turkey because we know that we can go #daimaileri (always forward) only with them.’’

Supporting the Improvement of the Star Girls

With the ‘’Each of Our Girls Is a Star’’ program that helps young girls to work together with me under equal social and economic circumstances, each year 1000 female students, 200 of which are university students, receive scholarships from Mercedes-Benz Türk. The same students also join programs that help with their personal and career improvement.

2004-Since 2004 over 400 Star Girls were invited to Istanbul to participate in cultural activities. 2013-Personal improvement workshops were started and 33 provinces were visited until today; over 800 Star Girls received personal improvement training.

2018- Information technologies and coding training were started and over 250 scholarship students received training until today.

Graduate Star Students Are Given Work Opportunities

Students that complete their education with a scholarship from the ‘’Each of Our Girls Is a Star’’ program have the opportunity to work at Mercedes-Benz Türk. Of the women that work in production at the firm, 20 \% are women who received an education with this program.