Since 1993

A fair start in life

AÇEV has been working to enable every child to be safe, happy, and learning in early childhood. Towards this goal, it develops and implements evidence-based early childhood, parenting, and women’s empowerment programs for beneficiaries in need. Themes that are strongly emphasized within the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals such as quality education in early childhood, role of families in raising future generations, gender equality, and lifelong learning underlie all activities of the Foundation.

To date, AÇEV has trained over 14,000 teachers and volunteers to deliver these programs and directly reached more than 1.4 million beneficiaries. In addition to face-to-face implementations, AÇEV has delivered its education programs via television, radio, web, and mobile communication devices, and reached an additional 10 million individuals across Turkey.

In addition to developing and implementing early childhood intervention programs, the Foundation supports academic research, runs public awareness raising campaigns, and lobbies for policies to provide children a fair start to life.

AÇEV played a significant role in providing access to pre-school education to millions of children in Turkey with the 7 is Too Late! Campaign. This campaign and other awareness raising and advocacy initiatives mobilized important changes in early childhood and adult education policy, more than doubling preschool access rates in Turkey.

In 2011, AÇEV initiated a discussion on the importance of the early childhood period in building peaceful societies with the academic community and a diverse range of global NGOs, UN policy makers, and public institutions resulting in the formation of the Early Childhood Peace Consortium.

In recent years, to respond to emerging needs, AÇEV has gone on to develop and implement education programs for Syrian refugee preschool children and their mothers in partnership with national agencies.

Beyond Turkey, local partners in 15 countries across Europe, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and Latin America have translated, adapted, and implemented AÇEV’s early childhood and parenting programs.

In total, AÇEV’s local and global advocacy, know-how dissemination, and campaigning efforts are estimated to have reached nearly 57 million people in Turkey and beyond.