By Margaret Sheard ….
The Anglo Turkish Association (ATA) kindly invited me to attend the handover ceremony on Thursday 26th November in respect of the work carried out by the association to provide a new activity/play room for the children of Karakum Special Needs Children’s School.
I was told that the room which has been refurbished to provide a wonderful activity/play area was an original building and included in the project was the installation of a toilet/washroom facility to avoid the necessity of the children having to return via the outside steps to the main building for this purpose.
The activity/play area is very well laid out with many items to stimulate the children with movement and coordination, in fact while I was there some of the activity items were being put to good use by a few of the children in attendance.
There were quite a lot of speeches, which included Gülter Kuran – ATA Chairman, Erbil Arkin – ATA Honorary President, Philip Lloyd – ATA Vice Chairman, a representative from the Ministry of Education, and the Girne Mayor, Nidai Gűngördű who had also given his valuable time to be there for this special occasion.
Most of the speeches were in Turkish, in which I am sorry to say I am very lacking, so I am giving below some quotes from the speech by Philip Lloyd :
“Back at the start of the year when the association was asked if it could decorate the activity room, I am sure no-one envisaged that what was then a simple request would turn out to be the major refurbishment project it ended up as being. A project that ended up well over 120,000TL.
The association has fundraised like never before, which is why we are all here today, at this moment I would like to express the association’s gratitude to the four special donors who assisted the association with their generosity and who are amongst us here today.
Special Donors are :
Someone Close to the Association
The Little Society of Kyrenia
Joshua’s Woodland Adventures
Creditwest Bank
But today’s ceremony is not about all of us here today basking in self glory, it is about the children who will use the refurbished facilities, today, tomorrow and in the future because, as adults, if in today’s world we can’t help our children when they are in need of help, then we all fail our responsibilities to our future generations.
To everyone who has contributed to today’s success, on behalf of the Anglo Turkish Association of Northern Cyprus, but more importantly the school’s children, I say thank you to all of you.”
Some of the children presented a gift to the people who had given a speech which was a lovely gesture and they looked so proud and pleased to be doing this.
The traditional cutting of the ribbon took place and so the new facility was officially handed over to the school.
The Anglo Turkish Association has undertaken many projects over the years and this is another example of their success in bringing together Expats and Turkish Cypriots to help the local community.
