ASKIDA NE VAR Says "#BizdenOlsun" with a Target of 1 Million Meals

ASKIDA NE VAR Says "#BizdenOlsun" with a Target of 1 Million Meals

ASKIDA NE VAR, the social enterprise that has been providing university students with free products and services such as meals, clothing, computers, books, courses, and theater tickets for 13 years, launched a major goodwill movement with the #BizdenOlsun campaign!

ASKIDA NE VAR integrated into the cafeteria systems of 37 state universities across Turkey as part of the #BizdenOlsun Project. This allows individuals and organizations to leave a meal "on the tab" for a student at university cafeterias by paying an average of 30 TL. After registering on the ASKIDA NE VAR website or mobile app, university students can load the suspended meal onto their student IDs and eat for free by scanning their IDs at the university cafeteria turnstiles.

The project, which ensures that students receive the relevant support in complete confidentiality, operates on a system rooted in our social culture — one where "the hand that gives does not see the hand that receives."

While the system ensures that the support a student receives remains confidential, it is designed so that only 1 meal per day can be taken from the tab. Additionally, students who take a meal from the tab but do not consume it cannot take another meal until they earn a new meal entitlement. This way, the aim is to ensure that meals are distributed equally and fairly.

51.4% of Students Face the Risk of Poor Nutrition During Their Studies
According to research conducted in 2023 by the Turkey Youth NGOs Platform (TGSP), 76.2% of young people in Turkey struggle with financial hardship, and 51.4% believe they have not been able to eat healthily throughout their education.

ASKIDA NE VAR aims to make a positive contribution to the lives of young people and to alleviate, to some extent, the financial difficulties they face through the #BizdenOlsun campaign it has launched. Thanks to the project, if a university student takes one meal per day from the tab, they will save an average of 1,000 TL per month. This will both reduce the stress on students and increase their access to opportunities such as attending cultural and arts events, taking courses, and buying more books with the budget they save.

Target: 1 Million Meals
The ultimate goal of the project is to ensure that 1 million meals reach university students free of charge by the end of 2025. On the very first day the widely supported campaign was announced, 200,000 meals were left on the tab.

ASKIDA NE VAR founder Oğuzhan Canım made the following remarks regarding the campaign:

"For most of us, university years are a time when we have plenty of time but a limited budget. Young people need to be supported financially so that they can develop themselves further, go to the theater or cinema, read more poetry, and buy books without looking at the price.

The most beautiful outcome of the social impact of the system we built is this: students who once received free products or services from the tab are now working at companies — and they haven't forgotten us. Almost every month, we receive emails from managers of various brands. They tell us that they benefited from ASKIDA NE VAR as students and that they now want to support disadvantaged students through the company they work for. That is what social impact and social transformation look like.

When we reach the 1 million meals we aim for with the #BizdenOlsun project, thinking about what a great contribution the students who benefit from the system will make to the system in the future excites us greatly. Our short-term goal is to provide 1 million free meals by the end of this year; our medium-term goal is to make all university cafeterias completely free with the support of brands, business people, and volunteers. That is why we invite everyone to support our #BizdenOlsun campaign."

"Heartfelt" Contributions from Project Stakeholders
While Ozan Açıktan voluntarily directed the campaign's promotional film, the creative agency Blab also provided voluntary support throughout the creative process.

In order to increase the number of meals left on the tab, institutions and publications such as Onedio, TEM Agency, Speaker Agency, and Forbes Türkiye also contributed to the project's visibility through voluntary communication support.

Borusan Kocabıyık Foundation Education and Project Development Director Assoc. Prof. Dr. Evren Barın Egrik shared her thoughts on the project as follows: "The statistical data on access to food — a basic need — only shows us the material dimension of a reality. Yet beneath this material data lie situations, events, and stories that may never come to light. Turning points that change people's lives… In the work carried out by our Foundation, we have observed that a significant number of students are increasingly experiencing serious difficulties accessing food, and as a result, they are suffering deprivation in both their physical and mental health as well as their educational and social lives. We are very pleased to support the #BizdenOlsun campaign, which has been brought to life by the ASKIDA NE VAR team and in which our Foundation is a project partner. We hope that the social impact created by the project will grow in ever-widening circles with the contributions of other institutions and individuals, reaching a scale beyond our dreams, and we invite everyone to change stories and say #BizdenOlsun."

#BizdenOlsun project sponsor Mavi CEO Cüneyt Yavuz expressed his thoughts on the project as follows: "As the brand of young people, with the responsibility of being a leading brand, we have always placed great importance on creating value for young people and adding meaning to their lives. The #BizdenOlsun project is a meaningful step toward ensuring equal opportunity. In this context, we are supporting access to healthy nutrition — the most fundamental need of university students — and we hope that this goodwill movement will grow even further through the power of solidarity."

Tavuk Dünyası Deputy General Manager of Marketing Ceylan Özmen commented: "ASKIDA NE VAR, which has become a milestone in the social entrepreneurship ecosystem, is taking a very valuable step in amplifying the transformative power of goodness with the #BizdenOlsun initiative. As Tavuk Dünyası, we have now completed the 3rd year of our strategic partnership with ASKIDA NE VAR on this journey we embarked on to improve the lives of our young people, contribute to their better nutrition, and support the sustainability of ASKIDA NE VAR. Seeing that what we are trying to do for young people is also meaningful to them motivates us greatly. In this context, the #BizdenOlsun campaign has been a joyful and proud project that reinforces our goal of being a social brand that genuinely aims to benefit students' lives."

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To support this great solidarity movement, you can visit www.askidanevar.com and leave as many meals on the tab as you wish.

Together, we can build a more equal future for university students — it is within our power!

The #BizdenOlsun fundraising campaign was launched with the permission of the Istanbul Governorship of the Republic of Turkey, dated 17.01.2025, numbered E-87385697-477.99-814349.