The first ladies of Montenegro, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (KKTC), Albania, Georgia and Turkey -- Svetlana Vujanovic, Meral Eroğlu, Teuta Topi, Sandra Elisabeth Roelofs and Gül, respectively -- visited Milli Piyango Başkent Vocational School for the Mentally Disabled at the completion of this year’s Education Enables campaign.
The first ladies were in Turkey to take part in an evaluation meeting marking the end of the campaign’s second year, hosted by Gül at the Çankaya presidential palace. They were joined by State Minister for Family and Women’s Affairs Selma Aliye Kavaf, the governors of 15 provinces, İstanbul deputy Lokman Ayva and actors Pınar Altuğ, Özlem Tekin, Murat Evgin, Seren Serengil and Metin Şentürk. Delivering the opening speech Gül said the project was realized with the aim of providing the disabled with educational opportunities and as such enabling them to take an active and constructive role in society. She said around 53,000 families were contacted as part of the campaign in order to explain to them that they were not protecting their disabled children by isolating them within the four walls of their homes.
“I would like to say with great pleasure that we have seen a 109 percent increase in the rate of disabled people receiving an education in our country over the last two years. While the number of disabled in education was close to 150,000 in 2009, the year our campaign started, this figure is now 316,000. It is possible to view this data only in terms of a measure of the success of this campaign. However, I also see the joy of a disabled person who has grasped the opportunity for a happy and honorable life behind each of these figures,” she said.
