Introduction

Although in the past, Turkey faced challenges in development and realisation of social inclusion policies, today there is the National Youth and Sports Policy Document (Ulusal Gençlik ve Spor Politikası Belgesi) that is approved by the Resolution of the Council of Ministers based on the Decree Law no. 638 and put into practice as to form a legal framework to the works on this field.

This document is in the nature of guidance for participation of the youth in any area of economic and social life, and marks the borders of the motions “disadvantaged individuals” and “social exclusion” of main policy field “Disadvantaged Youth and Social Inclusion” of the document’s main policy fields.  As expressed in the document, involvement in a crime, disability, unemployment, deficiency in income level in the economic sense, drug addiction, not being able to enjoy education opportunities, living out in the streets, being abused, living with problem families, anti-sociality and other nonconformity states are defined as being disadvantaged individual. Youth Policies for disadvantaged youth are initiated to be developed in this framework.

By the Ministry of Youth and Sports, targets and partners are determined within the framework  of policies ascertained with the youth, non-governmental organisations working in the field of youth, universities, local administrations, public institutions and organisations acting in the field of youth, various programs, projects and activities are organised to reach to these targets and non-governmental organisations and youth groups working in the field of youth are supported through various grant programs.

The Social Development Support Program (SOGEP), which has been run by the Development Agencies since 2019, is a social development program that aims to respond quickly to issues such as poverty and unemployment in these regions, and the needs of the changing social structure, to strengthen the nutrient capital of our disadvantaged regions and to support the process of social integration. The aim of the Social Development Support Program is to mobilize local dynamics in the provinces where it is implemented, to eliminate social problems arising from poverty, migration and urbanization, to respond to the needs arising from the changing social structure, to enable the disadvantaged segments of the society to participate more actively in economic and social life, to increase employability, to promote social inclusion to support social entrepreneurship and innovation and to popularise social responsibility practices.