FORD_SRDE_2018

60 in Turkey in order to quantify their developments. The difference between the results of the pretest which we conducted on our employees with Down syndrome and the results of the posttest we conducted at the end of 3 years showed an increase rate of 63%. According to these results, our employee with Down syndrome became an individual who has more confidence in themselves, self- sufficient, who needs less support to meet personal needs, who is able to control their behaviours according to the person-environment and time and who need the support of their family less. Thanks to all these developments, now they are able to performmore complex works compared to their first day at work and they are able to participate in socio-economic life. And our employee with Down syndrome had a change increase rate of 35%. Thus, they communicate more now and stay in communication process for longer periods of time. They are more flexible in sharing their possessions, they are able to use gestures and facial expressions more and they are able to make decisions to manage their own budgets. SIGN LANGUAGE TRAINING The installation team at the Ford Otosan Yeniköy Factory carried out a project called Touch with Sign Language to eliminate challenges emerging in communication with the hearing impaired people who are a part of the team, to increase communication and strengthen social interaction. In the voluntary training provided under the guidance of Installation Production Department, more than 20 employees were provided sign language training. Participants received certificates approved by the Ministry of National Education at the end of the project. Project was awarded with 2018 Chairman Leadership Award for Diversity (CLAD) and “Global Diversity and Inclusion” awards. We believe every individual is able to participate in production processes when the right conditions are provided, regardless of their disabilities. Therefore, we have the goal to raise both social awareness and disabled people’s employment rates in order to overcome prejudices. We make use of any available platform in order to communicate that diverse workforce is possible. We continue with our program of employing individuals with Autism or Down syndrome in dangerous jobs, which is a first in Turkey as well as in the world, in order to increase employment diversity at Ford and create common values. We listened from the families of our employees with Autism or Down syndrome the developments they have shown in categories such as improvements in their gross motor skills and fine motor skills, communication and human relations, self-sufficiency making future plans, and controlling the money they themselves earn. We used the technique of pretest-posttest with the scales that were standardized We make use of any available platform in order to communicate that diverse workforce is possible. INVESTING IN EMPLOYEES WomenWho Transform the Future Event As part of March 8 th , Women’s Day, we organised a meeting of Women Who Transform the Future and gathered together 23 women engineer candidates from different universities with the women engineers in Ford Otosan. In the event, engineers told the students about their career journeys and the perspective of Ford Otosan on gender equality.