HIGH SOCIETY PRODUCT BLACK DIAMOND WILL BE A SOURCE TO SCHOLARSHIPS

Source: Ticaret Newspaper

EGET: Education Geriatrics Ecological Agriculture Tourism Foundation

Founders: Serdar Safai Özer - Özlem Uzman

Özlem Uzman Chair of the Board of Directors

Safai Özer Chairman of the Board of Trustees

-EGET Foundation came to the agenda with truffle and lavender production in Armutçuk Agricultural Enterprise. And later, with the production of cosmetic products from lavender oil… Could you give information about these activities?

Safai Özer: First of all, we need to emphasize that our main purpose is to provide scholarships to university students; to lend a hand to young people whose education may be interrupted due to lack of income. In doing so, we prioritize the applicants with a very qualified computer program developed by ourselves. In all the other things we do, we have the ideal of setting an example for producers, but everything is always designed to serve our purpose of giving scholarships to students. The unchangeable article of the foundation’s charter reads, “To support students who are in economic difficulties while studying.”

Özlem Uzman: Our foundation is called EGET. When naming the foundation, we used the initials of the fields of work we are targeting. We put education at the top. ‘Education is freedom’ is one of the main slogans of our foundation. Atatürk’s Education is what makes a nation either live as a free, independent, glorious and high community or abandon it to bondage and misery. The quote is on the first page of our website. As for our investments and economic activities, in 2015, during the foundation’s establishment phase, we said, “Let’s not be an organization that only collects donations; let’s not be dependent on support from others.” As founders, we established a 22-acre agricultural enterprise in the Armutçuk neighborhood of Muğla’s Ula district and transferred it to the foundation. We have 200 acres of deeded land in the Elkin and Böbecen areas of Menteşe district. In order to transfer the area to the Foundation, we are waiting for the approval of the Muğla Metropolitan Municipality Assembly as an ecological tourism area in line with our zoning plan.

Safai Özer: I am proud to say that although EGET Foundation is still in the early stages of establishing its economic enterprises, it is already giving scholarships to students. We have already started this with the support of people who believe in the need for education and want to contribute to this process. As of September 2019, we opened our application for the fourth semester. With donations and the limited income of the foundation, we are currently providing scholarships to 31 university students for 350 TL per month, nine months a year. This year, we will give scholarships to 9 or 10 more students. It pleases us that in such a short period of time and while we are still in our infancy, we have reached a number as large as the foundations and associations of years.

-Have investments in geriatric tourism started?

Özlem Uzman: Has not started yet. That project will be a big investment. We are still in the development plan approval phase.

-Agricultural activities are going on at the moment; right?

Özlem Uzman: Armutçuk Agricultural Enterprise is 22 acres in size. “We thought about how to get the highest profit from an agricultural enterprise of this size and decided to produce truffles. Winter truffles are one of the most expensive products in the world. We worked with Muğla Sıtkı Koçman University and planted oak saplings with truffles grafted onto their roots on this land. When we did so, we announced to the public, “The food of the rich will become scholarships for students.”

Safai Özer: EGET Foundation does not only provide scholarships to students. He considers it his duty to be a pioneer for both farmers and local governments to turn to different agricultural productions. We will open the door to production with a very high return. Taking us as an example, Muğla Metropolitan Municipality established a 10-acre truffle enterprise a year after us.

-When is the first truffle harvest

Özlem Uzman: At the end of this year, at the beginning of 2020, we hope to have the first products, albeit very little. Kilosu 1000 Euro’nun üzerinde bir üründen söz ediyoruz. Harvesting is done with trained dogs; they can find the mushrooms underground. Our beloved puppy, Hera, is currently in training.

-We started to see your lavender oil cosmetic products under the brand name EGET TEN in the virtual environment and on the websites of your foundation. How the process of cosmetics production evolved

Özlem Uzman: We decided to plant lavender to utilize the spaces between the oak saplings. This is how the first lavender enterprise of the coastal cities came into being. This initiative paid off immediately. As the lavender spread rapidly, it became clear that this area could produce abundant yields of lavender. Inspired by us, other producers also started planting lavender. We both offer our knowledge and provide seedlings to those who need them.

While the lavender was growing, we put hives on our land to produce lavender honey. Lavender honey is also very valuable; you know. During last year’s lavender harvest, we thought, “How can we transform lavender oil into higher value-added products?” First, we extracted oil from the flowers at the Muğla Metropolitan Municipality’s distillery. Of course, lavender oil is also a valuable product. Bu da bir örnek çalışma gerçekte. Oil and hydrosol of medicinal aromatic plants are products imported by our country. When the quality of the lavender oil and hydrosol we obtained was high in the analyzes, we decided to turn them into cosmetic products. We made an agreement with a company that produces well in this field and had them produce lavender oil-based tonic, shampoo, liquid soap, solid soap, lavender cologne, lavender hydrosol. All of them have been tested; their certificates have been received. Our people can buy them with confidence, and every penny they pay goes to scholarships for low-income students.

Safi Özer: In everything we do, as we hope, we benefit other people. We have already set an example for farmers In Menteşe, a cooperative of medicinal aromatic plant growers was established. If they can afford the Ministry of Health certificates and testing processes, and if they can overcome this laborious and expensive phase, they can become a second brand of Muğla in cosmetics besides EGET TEN. We harvest our lavender with a sickle, without even using a chainsaw, so that we don’t contaminate our lavender with diesel or gasoline waste. But every producer has to be similarly attentive. This year, we experienced something else in the Armutçuk neighborhood, where mobile beekeepers placed first 600 and then 300 more hives during the lavender flowering period. We helped them too. Who benefits from lavender and who benefits from lavender.

-How do you choose the students you give scholarships to?

Özlem Uzman: Actually, we had a very nice development here too. The main objective before the scholarship applications was to be completely objective. We want our scholarships to go to the most needy and most successful students. In order to be objective, together with an expert friend, we have prepared a computer program over the past three years. Applications are made online. In the software we have prepared, we define the criteria you want to prioritize and the result is an automatic ranking. For example, we prioritize female students; we have criteria such as the number of siblings, whether the siblings are in school or not, whether the parents are alive or not, and of course the most basic criteria is the income of the family.

We also financed this software and acquired its intellectual rights at EGET. We plan to generate additional income for the foundation by selling the software or renting it to similar organizations. Maybe we can turn it into open source, in terms of sustainability.

Safai Özer: In the last two years, we have received over 15 thousand scholarship applications. “We marveled at how many young people were looking for hope. Although we had already established this foundation to benefit university students and to fulfill the requirements of being human, we did not realize that young people in particular were in such dire need.

-Your foundation building is private, I guess.

Özlem Uzman: Our foundation building is an old mansion. We restored it. It has a beautiful garden. It is a laboratory where we practice permaculture. We hold our ceremonies and events in this garden. Our mansion restoration was, in a way, a social responsibility project. The garden encourages visitors to become producers. People don’t know the beauty of the old Muğla. We even evaluate his doorstep. One day a week, we run an initiative for children called “Bookshelves without Doors, Books on the Streets”. We display books on a table in front of our door and give them to those who want to borrow them. Readers can make summaries of the book if they wish, or draw pictures related to the book’s subject matter. Once a year, we give prizes to young people for these productions.

“Geriatric tourism has a great potential”

-Could you tell us about your plans for geriatrics

Safai Özer: Our idea is to set up a wellness tourism business that also involves ecological agriculture and animal husbandry. An enterprise that is respectful to nature and aimed at the upper income class, with all kinds of facilities including thermal, 24 hour uninterrupted health services, a modern and finger pointing enterprise… We envision a residential area where people, especially from abroad, will come to stay and live for a long time.

Of course it will require a huge investment. The interesting thing is that the people we tell about this project at the fairs and events we attend abroad are very interested in the subject.

Özlem Uzman: We can easily say that such a business will be an application that will make an impact not only in our country but also in the world. We aim to realize an exemplary initiative for ecological tourism and geriatric tourism. We know that we can create an alternative to mass tourism in our country where many people from every country in the world will be eager to stay. Of course we dream of a business that respects nature, and of course scholarships for hundreds of students.