EGET FOUNDATION ON ITS 10TH ANNIVERSARY

Our 22,000 m² lavender field earned organic farming certification in 2022. To obtain high-quality oil from these lavenders, we established Muğla's first organically certified lavender distillation unit.

We can say that the products produced by the EGET Foundation Economic Enterprise have achieved a certain level of recognition today…

Today, the quality of EGET Foundation Economic Enterprise products is appreciated not only locally but also internationally. Our EGET branded olive oils have cemented their quality with awards won at the world's most prestigious competitions.

In 2020, our early harvest, unfiltered extra virgin olive oil, produced under the EGET Kuzluk brand, won a silver medal at the Tokyo Olive Japan competition. In 2023, our EGET Memecik olive oil was awarded silver medals at both the Olive Japan and the London International Olive Oil Competition (IOOC).

In 2025, this success reached a new peak: EGET Memecik won a gold medal in London. That same year, with another silver medal from Tokyo, we reached a total of five international quality awards.

These awards made visible not only the quality of our products but also our efforts to set an example to the world with our environmentally friendly production model and our social entrepreneurship approach, which has transformed into a scholarship fund.

How does the Economic Enterprise market its products?

EGET Foundation Economic Enterprise, the commercial arm of our foundation, sells hundreds of products in the EGET Plants, EGET Foods, EGET Handicrafts, and EGET Workshops categories both through its own e-commerce platform eget.com.tr and through its stores on all well-known digital marketplaces, reaching customers seeking natural products.

Using the slogan "From Nature to You; From You to Education," our Economic Enterprise has adopted the principle of respecting nature and the environment in every endeavor; prioritizing natural ingredients in every product it produces or has produced. We do not offer any product to the market without laboratory analysis. In our own agricultural operation, we do not use chemical fertilizers or any chemical pest control methods, and we believe that the soil from which we obtain our products must be carefully protected. Even in our choice of fertilizer, we use organically certified vermicompost, considered a miracle of nature, in our soils.

Our Economic Enterprise, operating with the principles of sustainable agriculture and environmentally respectful production, was accepted into the Good Market community as of July 2024. Good Market is an international platform that aims to create positive change on a global scale by bringing together sustainability-focused producers from different countries.

Would you like to talk about your Lavender Festival, which we, as Social Economy, love to participate in?

Since 2017, our lavender festival, organized for the first time in Muğla by our Economic Enterprise in conjunction with the lavender harvest season, has become a tradition over the years. These gatherings, intertwined with nature, attract more participants every year. As in the Lavender Harvest Festival, which we held for the ninth time in 2025, visitors not only experience the beauty of our organic lavender fields but also gain both theoretical and practical knowledge by participating in ecology-themed workshops. Thus, our festival offers opportunities for learning and sharing, in addition to spending time with nature.

So, in a sense, festivals serve as a means of raising ecological awareness.

We strive to cultivate ecological awareness not only in fields or festival areas, but in every setting where we interact with children. In the ecology education programs we conduct at various private schools in Muğla, we make seed balls with children, prepare compost, and introduce them to healthy and natural worm compost. One of our many activities in this direction was the "A Handful of Soil, A World of Hope" event, which we organized in cooperation with Menteşe Municipality a few months ago. Through these kinds of events, where we share both theoretical and practical information with children and allow them to touch the soil, we aim to contribute to the increase of individuals who connect with nature, think about it, and produce.

The Nature and Life Academy, which we organize in collaboration with the EGET Foundation, TED University, and the TOVAK Foundation, aims to offer a multidisciplinary perspective on ecology through both humanities and social sciences, as well as applied fields. At our second meeting last year, we implemented a special program for women with the theme "Women and Ecology," with the contributions of the Muğla Metropolitan Municipality.

Could you tell us a little about the projects you are currently working on?

One of our steps towards institutional development was the Strategy Development Workshop we organized in Akyaka on April 19-20, 2025, with the support of Civil Thought. In this meeting, attended by experts from different disciplines and our Advisory Board members, we re-evaluated our priorities and reviewed our goals. We discussed our areas of impact, ranging from education to ecological agriculture, from healthy living tourism to gerontology; we reassessed EGET's current activities and created a sustainable roadmap to increase impact and scale up our work.

HEEFTA (Holistic Environmental Education from Training To Action), an environmental education project developed by the EGET Foundation based on its Nature and Life Academy, has been awarded international funding under the European Union-supported Interreg NEXT Mediterranean Basin Program.

Selected as one of 60 projects out of 631 applications from 15 countries, HEEFTA stands out as one of only three youth initiatives from Turkey deemed worthy of support. Furthermore, being one of only two institutions in Muğla, along with Muğla Sıtkı Koçman University, to receive this funding is a source of great pride for us.

In this project, which we will carry out with partners from Italy, Spain, Greece, Tunisia, and Egypt, we aim to increase young people's environmental awareness and equip them with green and blue skills to translate knowledge into action, by approaching environmental education from a holistic perspective.

On the other hand, in line with our nature-friendly production philosophy, we planted the first seeds of our foundation's dream in our 156,000 square meter organically certified field in the Elkin region of Muğla, where we cultivated organic yellow wheat, black awn, and chickpeas from heirloom seeds. We are delighted to have expanded our range of local and healthy food production with these products and to have taken another step forward.

Of course, our projects are not limited to those mentioned above. For years, we have been running the "Doorless Libraries, Books on the Streets" project to bring books to children who lack access to them. "I Am Ayşen the Worm," written and illustrated by Safaî, is a special publication designed to introduce and instill a love of nature in children. The Hacı Latifler House, restored by Safaî, who is also a restoration architect, and which we now use as the Foundation's headquarters, is not just an old building; it is now a living space that connects the past and the present, breathing life into it and seemingly thanking us for keeping it alive.

I'd also like to share a new development: This year, for the first time, we were accepted into the Step by Step Running Platform. With this special project, which we call "Hope for Youth, Breath for Nature," our volunteer runners are preparing to spread kindness, transforming every step into a student's education and a future in harmony with nature. We held our first run in Eskişehir on August 2-3. EGET Foundation achieved great success in our first run, the Eti Lifalif 6th International Eskişehir Half Marathon, becoming the NGO that collected the highest donation.

What are your plans for the future?

As it has done until now, EGET Foundation will continue to create inspiring good examples both in our country and around the world. With this belief, we want EGET Foundation to be remembered not only for its founders but also for the students it supports, its contributions to ecological balance, its pioneering practices in organic farming, the projects it develops in the field of gerontology, and the examples it sets in the fields of healthy living tourism and farm tourism.

In line with this vision, we continue our work to develop larger and more sustainable projects through our foundation's Economic Enterprise, as well as through EGET Agriculture and Tourism Trade Ltd. Company, which we established. We aim for this structure to contribute to our work in harmony with nature, supporting local development, and focusing on education and ecology.

“In our country, laying one stone on top of another requires considerably more faith and determination than in other countries. Perhaps that is why it is so valuable.”

How do you find the strength and energy to do all this?

Safaî has a poem he wrote and recited in response to the question, “Why did you establish a foundation?”: “Eleven Owes Ten.”

We were born and raised in these lands; we ate the bread and drank the water of these lands, we were educated in these lands. In fact, everything we do is simply about paying our debt to these lands. We derive our strength from the responsibility of paying this debt—from our philosophy of life.

I would also like to emphasize that no matter how difficult the conditions our country finds itself in, no matter how much despair they may cause us, we will continue to work with dedication, faith, and unwavering commitment to nurturing the seeds sown by Safaî, without compromising our principles and on the path we believe is right.

As we celebrate our 10th anniversary, we are certain that Safaî, whom we now refer to as the "Living Safaî" and who bequeathed all his assets to the EGET Foundation, is witnessing the successes of our Foundation from where he is, smiling; that he is watching with joy the sprouting and fruition of the seeds he planted when establishing the EGET Foundation; and that he is experiencing the indescribable happiness of the EGET Foundation touching the lives of more young people.

Is there anything else you would like to say to the readers of Social Economy?

The power of the social economy increases not only with the proliferation of good examples, but also with the existence of individuals and institutions that make these examples visible. In this sense, I would like to express my gratitude to the Social Economy Blog and its team, who have meticulously followed and made visible the social benefit ecosystem for years, and to Prof. Dr. I would like to express my gratitude to Aylin Çiğdem Köne.

Today, our scholarship recipients who have graduated are donating their scholarship money to our foundation, illuminating the education of other young people. One of the most beautiful examples of this commitment was when a Pharmacy Faculty graduate asked for our permission to name his pharmacy "EGET." This and many other stories are the most meaningful indicators of the permission our Foundation has granted over the past ten years.

We are touching lives…

My personal opinion: A person makes their own life meaningful to the extent that they can add value to the lives of others. I invite everyone who thinks like us to join the movement of kindness carried out by the EGET Foundation.