VAN - The laborers, who were dismissed from their duties through the statutory decree (KHK), gathered and founded the ‘Liza Cooperative’. Hazal Yılmaz, one of the volunteer founder, called the cooperative as a “silent action”.  

 

Public laborers, which are exported with the Decree Law, continue to create alternative production areas. The dismissed laborers in Van are gathered and found "Liza Cafe and Patisserie Cooperative". In this cooperative which consists of volunteer founders, the products for sale are produced by the laborers at home. The Cooperative has more than 40 volunteer founders. Hazal Yılmaz is one of these founders.  

 

'Silent action'

 

Calling Liza Cooperative as an action, Hazal says "Our goal is to create an alternative, based on a cooperative for production. Liza is a cooperative consist of dismissed people, generally women. After being dismissed, our friends had economic problems. Now, they bring the home-made cookies, pastry, meals, etc. to here for sale.”

 

'In fact, we are more powerful when we are together”

 

Hazal stated that the KHKs were issued to intimidate the people and make women to stay at home but the laborers didn’t stay silent against that, and continued, “The reason why we opened this cooperative was to stand against the male sovereignty and say “we are in here and we will never go”.  When we founded the cooperative we based on volunteerism. We are not only women, there are also men among us. We have become more powerful with the dismissed friends through solidarity with each other."