Ece Ciftci [she/her]

TURKEY | Education
Ece believes that a better world can only be achieved with civil society participation and active citizenship. She has worked as an advocate for children’s access to quality education and for young people’s social cohesion and representation under the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

She is the founder and chairwoman of the SosyalBen Foundation, launched in Istanbul, headquarters in Brussels which has since expanded its operations to 11 countries and has reached more than 65.000 children with its programs to provide access the quality education. She launched SosyalBen Foundation when she was 14, she has been working with more than 15000 active young volunteers for over 17 years. The foundation empowers economically disadvantaged children through extracurricular activities and workshops. She advocates inside and outside international institutions for children’s rights and youth empowerment. 2024 April, she was elected as the youngest Standing Committee Member of the Committee of INGOs in the Council of Europe and she is currently pursuing a phd in cultural anthropology.

This bio is updated as of May 2025.