Women, Let's Go Racing: TOSFED Launches Women's Commission

The Women's Commission (TOSK) has been established within TOSFED with the aim of increasing women's participation in every area of motorsport in Turkey, enabling them to play a more active role, and creating a platform where female competitors and officials can voice their concerns and develop projects to address them.
Made up of Ayşin Uysal, Begüm Özkan, Beyza Avcıoğlu, Çiçek Güney, Didem Kargın and Yeşim Bostancı, each of whom has been or remains active in motorsport, the commission met the media on 8 May at a press conference held at Campaign Academy, which was also attended by female competitors and officials.
Outlining their goals and projects at the meeting, the commission members said that, besides competitors, they would stay in close contact with the officials and volunteers within motorsport, and that they aim to raise awareness through social responsibility projects.

WHAT WILL TOSK DO? WHAT ARE ITS GOALS?
TOSK has begun its work by publicising news about women in motorsport from around the world and from Turkey, along with the success stories of female competitors, across a number of channels, social media above all.
Following intensive talks with TOSFED, the "Turkish Women's Championships" classification, which has been run only in rallying since the 2016 season, will be opened up in all disciplines.
It is planned that one of the female competitors applying through the TOSK website will be selected as a course car driver at the International Bosphorus Rally, part of the European Rally Cup, to be held in July.
Work has started on bringing in new female technical officials for the Turkey round of the World Rallycross Championship, which will be held at the Intercity Istanbul Park circuit in October.
At the 2015 end-of-season awards ceremony, successful women media members and successful female officials in motorsport will be recognised.
In 2015, once our groundwork has been completed, volunteer crew members and teams will be formed across Turkey.
Introductory meetings will be held with women's and motorsport clubs at universities, and approaches will be made to take part in joint projects.
Contact will be made with female competitors who are members of motorsport clubs.
Pilot primary schools will be selected across Turkey, and preparations for the 2016 projects will begin.
By identifying a total of 10 pilot schools in the Marmara Region, the commission will launch a traffic awareness project titled "Children Will Grade Their Mothers' Driving" and a project on mothers' participation in motorsport.
An application has been made to the FIA for one round of the FIA Women in Motorsport Commission's international "Young Women Driver Selection" project to be held in Turkey under the TOSK organisation, with Turkish participation in the selection rounds.
Efforts will be made to introduce quotas that encourage young women to train as technical crew and mechanics, and applications will be made for seminars and certified training programmes at universities and vocational schools, in cooperation with the Ministry of National Education and professional racing teams.