Cheshire Home – An exciting future
By Chris Elliott
On Saturday the 11th May the Annual General Meeting was held at Cheshire Home (Girne Rehabilitation Centre). Dr Ali Toker, the President, firstly made a speech in Turkish about the past year before the financial accounts were presented by the Treasurer, Nurten Emiroglü.
Additional information was given in English by Founding President Attila Bereroğlu and Taner Enginel the Head of the Disciplinary Committee.
In addition to the general information given, th
e sad news was announced that Dr Ali Toker was to stand down as President and following a presentation, Dr Nuray Yeşiladalı was elected as the new President.
Having had some involvement with Cheshire Home in the past, I would like to tell our readers a little of Cheshire Home and the people involved with it.
The Girne Rehabilitation Centre (Cheshire Home) is a privately-managed community asset that provides day care services for disabled people in the Girne area of North Cyprus.
In 1985 the Girne Rehabilitation Centre was founded by a group of Turkish, Cypriot and British volunteers, led by Canon Arthur Rider, who was at the time the vicar of St Andrew’s Church, and the group’s Founding President, Attila Berberoĝlu, to provide help and facilities for physically handicapped people in the Girne (Kyrenia) area.
Conforming to the ideas and model provided by the Leonard Cheshire Foundation, Girne Rehabilitation Centre is the only Middle Eastern partner of the UK registered charity 
Leonard Cheshire Disability, which has over 255 partners in 54 countries.
The volunteers soon realised they needed a purpose-built facility, and on 7th October 1995 the Girne Rehabilitation Centre was opened by Rauf Denktaş, the Founding President of The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.
During the week disabled members are offered a variety of forms of therapies, including educational, occupational and physical. The Centre has a number of specialists on call to provide speech and other therapies. Centre members also receive breakfast and lunch while they are at the centre.
The Girne Rehabilitation Centre is entirely self-funded and does not receive any assistance from the Government, so your contributions and help are extremely important. The Centre exists to help those who are less fortunate than ourselves so do please try to help them.
Dr Ali Toker started to help the community at the centre as a medical doctor during 1996 
and was elected as the President of Cheshire Home in 2008 a position he has held until 2013 as well as providing on-going medical treatment at the centre. Dr Ali leaves behind him a record of a caring friendship with his patients and he will be missed by so many people.
Dr Nuray Yeşiladalı the new President of Cheshire Home is credited with having brought public awareness to the disease of Thalassemai in 1980 which has now been brought under control and eliminated from North Cyprus unlike many other Mediterranean countries.
Dr Nuray, with her new committee, will now be reviewing the great successes of the past and the needs and areas for development so the work of Cheshire Home can go on with renewed vigour and we will bring you news of this as we receive it.
