Our Minister of Family and Social Services Derya Yanık said, "I would like to make this call once again to all private and public institutions and organizations. We are ready to provide this to all institutions and organizations that require technical and information support regarding accessibility."

Minister Derya Yanık attended the “Accessibility Themed Contests” Award Ceremony, organized by the Ministry in the categories of “poetry” for primary schools, “painting” for secondary schools and “short films” for high schools, with the aim of creating a culture of accessibility. In her speech at the ceremony held at the Presidential National Library, Yanık said that accessibility is a definition that covers buildings, parks, pavements, public transportation services and many services where different services are provided in cities.

Indicating that one should not only evaluate accessibility as transportation and buildings, Yanık stated that accessing all services and areas, including information and communication technologies, is the most natural necessity of daily life.

Pointing out that being accessible should not be seen as the need of only persons with disabilities, Yanık said that accessibility is a must for a developed, civilized city and society and the need for accessibility has arisen even for older persons, pregnant women with limited mobility, children, those with temporary physical discomfort, patients, uncles and aunts returning from shopping with a market cart.

Yanik stated that they describe accessibility as the door to all services and said: "Accessibility is the prerequisite for benefiting from all the services we offer and participating in social life. In this sense, we have a slogan that we repeat often and that we consider very important. We say 'Accessibility is for everyone'. Therefore, as the Ministry of Family and Social Services, we have made accessibility, the most basic human right, one of our most important agenda items."

"We have carried out 47 thousand 270 inspections so far"

Explaining that they have grouped their work under three headings in order to expand accessibility all over Türkiye, Yanık said that the first is legal regulations, and that they made buildings, open spaces, public transportation vehicles and services accessible with the "Turkish Disability Act No. 5378 ".

Reminding that they have established Accessibility Monitoring and Inspection Commissions under the coordination of governorships in each province by regulating various sanctions to implement legal obligations, Yanık said: "Thanks to the regular inspections since 2013, public institutions and private service providers have accelerated their accessible practices. Hopefully, we will carry out an even more intensive work together in the coming period. To date, we have conducted 47,270 inspections. We also gave Accessibility Certificates to 2 thousand 599 buildings, open spaces and public transportation vehicles that were found to be accessible during the inspections."

Pointing out that the second topic is the dissemination of applications and reaching as wide an audience as possible, Yanık stated that in this context, they provide technical information support to all institutions that make a request.

Minister Yanık made the following call to all public and private institutions:

“Accessibility is an indicator of an advanced civilization that serves the benefit of both you and our society. Creating accessible living spaces is one of the most valuable investments in our future. In this regard, we, as the Ministry, are ready to guide you at any time. We are working to make it easier with all our means. All you have to do is request it from us. Please request. I would like to make this call to all private and public institutions and organizations once again. We are ready to provide accessibility-related technical support and information support to all our institutions and organizations.”

"We witness how our children approach the issue of accessibility with sensitivity"

Indicating that the third topic is education and awareness, Yanık stated that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan took the most important step in this topic by declaring 2020 as the Year of Accessibility.

Pointing out that in addition to all these activities, one of the activities for awareness is accessibility-themed contests, Yanık continued as follows:

“Today, we witness how our children approach the issue of accessibility with sensitivity. While listening to the poems, I felt like I was listening to the poet who has been writing poetry for years. I am really impressed. I congratulate the children. There are some expressions, by the way, this is the product of a very special attention. The children obviously observed their friends and the people they know with disabilities and very closely. They have done this very successfully. Through the contributions of our primary, secondary and high school children and youth to the 'accessibility-themed' poetry, painting and short film contest, we saw that the new generation is coming with great awareness. We trust them endlessly in this matter, as in everything else. While organizing the contest, we thought that we needed to reach our children and young people in order to create an 'accessibility culture' in our country, and that it was extremely important to make them aware that accessibility is not a blessing or a social responsibility, but a fundamental right. There is a point that we insistently underline in our activities regarding persons with disabilities. We think that every work is a debt to our own citizens. We consider ourselves obliged to fulfill it. In this sense, we know that the creation of an accessibility culture is extremely important and valuable.”

Minister Yanık stated that they acted with the vision of an inclusive society where all citizens can realize their potential as equal citizens, and emphasized that with this vision, they continue to walk with determined steps for a strong and great Türkiye under the leadership of President Erdoğan.

After the speeches, Minister Yanık presented their awards to the top 3 students in each category.

Asya Nil Bayır came first in the "poetry" category for primary schools, Azra Arvin Avşar was the second, Yusuf Çınar Çil was the third, in the "painting" category for secondary schools İpek Burcu Ünal was the first, Elif Güneş Bilgiç was the second and Nehir Aybay was the third. Fatma Nur Çelik came first in the "short film" category for high schools, İsmail Irtam came in second, and students of the Cinema Club of Adana İhsan Atış Anatolian High School, came third. Students received their awards from Minister Yanık.

After the ceremony, Minister Yanık visited the exhibition where the works that participated in the painting contest were exhibited.