There are numerous projects being carried out by the GAP Administration such as poverty decreasing strategies which unify the economical, social and environmental dimensions of sustainable development, studies regarding encouraging participant approaches and improving capacities as well as overseeing disadvantaged groups and gender perspective in these studies. One of the most important operations carried out in this context is the Multi-Purpose Community Centers (CATOM) project. CATOMs have come out from the Action Plan starting point prepared as based on the “Research on Woman’s Statute in the GAP Region and Her Integration to the Development Process” being one of the studies carried out and on the Social Action Plan prepared based on the findings of the five primary researched conducted by the GAP Administration between the years 1992 – 94.

Started to be opened in the GAP Region since 1995, there are currently 30 Multi-Purpose Community Centers (CATOMs) in 9 cities of the region. The target group of CATOMs is teenage girls and young women. They are community based centers which predicate on participation and are established in neighborhoods where mostly poor households who have immigrated from rural areas and in county centers as well as central village settlements.

In neighborhoods where CATOM exists, majority of the people work for a very low wage/income in marginal areas and as off the record, temporarily or as seasonal workers; children are also put to work in order to make them contribute to the livelihood of the household.

Studies have shown that the groups mostly affected from poverty are women and children. And the betterment of women’s social and economical positions has a direct influence on the prosperity of the household. For this reason, the projects that are aiming for the betterment of women’s statutes are not only a requirement in terms of human rights but also carry importance for the increase in social prosperity.

The objective in CATOMs is to create an environment in which women may find an opportunity to detect their own issues, to identify them and use an initiative to solve them; to ensure that women participate to the public arena and benefit from public services more; to increase employment for and entrepreneurship in women; to contribute to ensuring the equality of opportunity by strengthening women; to initiate the gender balanced development process and in this way to develop repeatable model/models based on the progress of participating community. The major principle in CATOMs is to show women what can be done under which circumstances instead of instructing them what to do. It is the women themselves to make the choice out of various alternatives or introduce new options.

Matching the Bridge from Women to Women Bıttım Soap Project with its foundation objective and its basic principles, CATOM has supported the project and tried to enable women at Mardin branches to benefit from the project. For more information about CATOM please click.