New Horizons October 2018 | Page 14

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In his opening speech, President of Habitat Association Sezai Hazır stated the following:

“Habitat spent half of its lifespan, so 10 years on this project. For this reason, it is a very valuable project for us. I don’t see the project as just financial literacy awareness. This program is an amazing field of application for people with future dreams and ideals. A platform where people can discover their talents, meet with different disciplines and learn to discipline themselves. Habitat, which has put sustainable development at its center for the next 10 years will support academics, organizations, non-governmental organizations, and individuals who wish to pursue careers in this field. It will use some of its resources to improve the capacity of NGOs and those who wish to pursue a career in civil society and those who wish to work in this field.

Turkey and the whole world are now in line with the sustainable development goals. Business, media, ministries and universities are acting in this direction. Because, if you want to eliminate poverty when you are measured with the 250 sub-goals which we call 17 targets, you should now measure yourself there. These programs create an environment that changes and transforms all of you. Young people from 81 provinces contact each other for the first time.

We should now take the steps on its 10th year to take the " I Can Manage My Money " project to a higher level. Now, we cease to be just an institution or program known for our work in Turkey. We transfer our work to these countries as good practice. The OECD has taken our content as a good practice in localizing sustainable development goals and presented it to the whole world as educational content. Maintaining a project for 10 years isn’t easy. It needs to provide certain things. One of them is the importance of keeping the synergy between the partners dynamic. Sustainable voluntary movement management is crucial and must be open to constant change. This is a good example of that. We first started by raising awareness among individuals. Now we have become a program that touches the lives of 1 million people which are continuing with 4 segments.”