Women become breadwinners with hand-sewn balls in Burdur

BURDUR

Nearly 300 housewives in the southern province of Burdur are making a living and gaining social skills by producing hand-sewn traditional “bocce” balls, thanks to a project launched in 2019 with the support of a local university.

The project provided training for women in hand-sewn ball production, after which, a cooperative was formed called the "Burdur Ball Sewing Women's Initiative Cooperative" and started producing a thousand balls a day.

The women have been particularly successful in exporting bocce balls to France. They exported 2,500 sets of bocce balls in 2022 and 24,000 sets in 2023. They recently received an order for 20,000 sets of bocce balls for 2024 from a French company.

The women say that their hand-sewn balls are of better quality and stronger than machine-made balls. They also hope to popularize bocce in Türkiye, a game that is not widely known in the country.

Mehmet Öcal, a faculty member at Mehmet Akif Ersoy University who helped develop the project, said that its goal was to increase social development and welfare in Burdur. He added that the women are now producing a product that is import-substituting for Türkiye.

Aysel Özcan, the president of the cooperative, stated that the project has been a good opportunity for women to work and earn an income. She said that the cooperative is producing 20,000 sets of bocce balls for France and that they hope to receive more orders in the future.

“There are six balls in a set of balls, so we will send 120,000 balls to France,” she added.

Havva Ercan, a housewife who joined the project three years ago, noticed that she is proud to be producing something as a woman. She said that the women in the workshop have a fun environment and that they also play bocce together to relax during breaks.