The Girne Mayor published a message to mark the Disabled Week,10th to 16th May 2022.
The message emphasised the necessity of providing an easier and more enjoyable environment for individuals with special needs. Their struggles to hold on to life should be minimised so that they were at least as free as and indistinguishable from healthy individuals.
People should always treat each other with respect and believe that being mentally or physically different should not prevent one from being fully active in life.
The Disabled Unit of the Social Affairs Branch of Girne Municipality offered its services with the aim of increasing the contribution of special needs individuals at social and educational functions. He asked that disabled individuals within the municipality borders got in touch and registered with the Social Affairs Branch.
The New Service Building of the Municipality had been designed with the disabled in mind with suitable ramps and cashier windows. This served as an example to adopt in public spaces for the convenience of disabled citizens.
The message recalled that a meeting entitled “Making Cities Accessible: MEWA Region Accessible Tourism Workshop” had been held in Girne on 21st and 22nd October 2021. At that meeting ideas and suggestions were aired that it was possible to cater for disabled tourists and allow them to participate in the local social and cultural life. With international, individual and institutional cooperation, living spaces could be arranged so that tourists could cope with every situation and at any stage of disabilities, on their own. That would lead to an improvement in the quality of their lives. By arranging that workshop Girne Municipality had shown its support for the accessible town policy.
In 2016 Girne Municipality had established the Social Affairs Directorate and been following “Implementation Criteria for Disabled Standards for Cities and Buildings”. This was to create an accessible city for everyone and reduce difficulties faced by individuals in public spaces. At Girne Municipality they had been progressively expanding ‘people focused’ studies to ensure all individuals were treated equally and moved about freely, leading dignified lives and without prejudicing any citizens like the elderly, disabled, women and children etc.
It was important to create circumstances for special needs citizens to take up their roles in society. For that it was necessary for people to provide them with equal opportunities and be more sensitive towards them.
The message ends with Güngördü saying he hugged all special needs citizens and their families with love and respect.
Pointing out the importance of providing opportunities for citizens with special needs to take on a role in society, Güngördü emphasized the need to create equal opportunities for them and expressed his hope that the sensitivity towards our citizens with special needs would increase. Güngördü said, “I would like to take this opportunity to embrace and respect all our citizens with special needs and their families.”
Source (Turkish): Girne Municipality
