Nearly a decade ago, Sibel unlocked the door to a modest beauty center in Bolu, a quiet city ringed by forests and mountains. What began as a means of livelihood soon became something more intimate: a refuge. Within its walls, she has created not only an income stream for her family, but also a rare kind of community—where women feel at ease, where the rituals of trimming, styling, and pampering often give way to something deeper: conversation, counsel, a safe space to exhale.

For outsiders, Sibel’s story might already look like the fulfillment of a dream. But for her, the shop has always been the first act of a larger ambition. She envisions a beauty academy, the first in Bolu, where young women could gain both the training and the confidence to step into the industry—whether as skilled employees or eventual owners themselves. Recently, she took tangible steps in that direction, converting her own two-story building into a learning center and painstakingly securing permits for structural upgrades. Her savings carried her as far as they could; after that, she needed something more.

That something arrived in the form of the Zehra Taşman Women’s Empowerment Program, a program of Bolu Bagiscilar Vakfi (BBV). When Sibel applied, her determination stood out. She was admitted.

In the same cohort was Muhterem, a farmer whose life’s work is the soil. She grows fruit, vegetables, and legumes with an emphasis on organic methods, but her aspirations reach further: sustainable seed production, a stronger marketing chain, and—most of all—raising awareness among fellow farmers about the fragile ecosystems they depend on. For her, too, ambition required more than grit; it required mentors, resources, and a network. The program welcomed her as well.

The Zehra Taşman Women’s Empowerment Program is less an intervention than a kind of inheritance. It honors its namesake, Zehra Taşman, who, as a gifted student, had to abandon her education for lack of money but never lost her devotion to learning. Her son, Haldun Taşman—Chairman Emeritus of TPF—created the program to extend the opportunity his mother had been denied. In a way, every woman who enters the program carries forward what Zehra could not pursue herself.

Today, Sibel and Muhterem, along with their peers, find themselves not only with financial support but with something deeper: the training, guidance, and solidarity that help a business grow from fragile idea to sustainable enterprise. Sibel’s academy and Muhterem’s farm are not simply individual projects, but the growth of a larger vision, seeded by one woman’s unfinished story and nurtured into many futures.

 

As TPF, we are proud to be part of this project and to carry forward Zehra Taşman’s legacy through many more entrepreneurial women to come!