Ministry moves its call center to quake zone

VAN - Hürriyet Daily News

The call-center, based in Van’s Erciş, is available all over Turkey at telephone number 147, to answer any questions related to primary and secondary schools.

The Ministry of Education has hired 75 people from the earthquake-hit southeastern province of Van for a new call center to serve teachers, students and their parents. The new center’s staff have been mostly chosen from disabled people and earthquake victims.

The center, based in Van’s Erciş district, came into use on March 1. The Ministry hired disabled people who had only a small chance of finding work in the city. Dilber Koç, who has been working for the center, said the city’s people had been through hard times after the earthquake, but now the center has become a bridge of hope for disabled low-incomers.

“We have lost family members, houses and jobs but we, disabled people of the city, came together in this center. This place has become a home for us. It is not easy for disabled people to find a job in Erciş,” Koç told the Hürriyet Daily News.

Koç also said that although the center had helped to alleviate disabled people’s unemployment in the city, it was still not enough for Van, which saw massive devastation in the wake of last year’s 7.2-magnitude earthquake.

Training
The staff have received training for online-answers to queries, and any questions left unanswered will be replied to within 72 hours via e-mail, telephone messages or calls, said Yılmaz Güney from the ministry’s public information agency. Güney also said that another Ankara-based call center was being used for assisting the service as well.

The center is available all over Turkey at telephone number 147, to answer any questions related to primary and secondary schools.

The ministry officials said some 25 people would be hired soon.

Over 600 people lost their lives and thousands were rendered homeless in the wake of a 7.2-magnitude earthquake that rocked the city on Oct. 23, followed by another temblor on Nov. 9 and repeated aftershocks.