HSBC donates TL 31,000 to Turkish charity

Umut Çocukları Derneği (Children of Hope Association) asked HSBC for financial help to open a textile workshop as part of a project called “Self-Help Workshop Project” in order to overcome its financial problems and provide children in need with employment in the workshops. HSBC granted the request and has extended a helping hand to the organization.

Umut Çocukları Derneği is a charity organization that has done a great deal to help street children and raise public awareness about them.

The charity opened a textile workshop in İstanbul with the money donated by the bank and employed many homeless children in the workshop to manufacture bags made up of organic fabric. The bags, which bear pictures of İstanbul's Bosporus, are sold for TL 10 apiece.

A total of 1,000 bags were manufactured in 10 days; however, only 300 have been sold so far. The first buyers of the bags were a group of 50 social services specialists from Austria who visited the workshop.

Commenting on the workshop project, HSBC Corporate Communications Director Evren Altıok told Akşam that the “Self-Help Workshop Project” is the first project concerning street children that the giant banking company has funded in Turkey.

“The project began thanks to Ferhat Şahin, the chairman of Umut Çocukları Derneği, who appealed to our company for financial support on behalf of the charity. We have obtained positive results so far and our aim now is to open new workshops in various provinces across Turkey,” Altıok further added.