An accessible holiday resort for the disabled

Back in 1967, Turkey did not have many tourist destinations. When it opened, it was one of the best holiday facilities in the country.

Turkey’s tourism industry would start to flourish later in the 80s.

I am talking about the Foça Holiday Resort.

It is, however, widely known as the French Holiday Resort. For years, people have shown interest. It was not only a nature’s wonder, but also attracted foreign tourists with the activities it offered. One single resort introduced Foça to entire Europe. Since then, its fame has carried on for years.

Starting from the mid-80s, Turkey started to build the most beautiful touristic holidays in the region. Antalya has become the temple of tourism activities. Millions of people have flocked to Antalya just to see those facilities. Over the years, the popularity of the Foça Holiday Resort has declined. And in the end, it happened. The facility closed.

It has remained closed for 13 years.

The Justice and Development Party (AKP) deputy chair Hamza Dağ tried very hard to reopen the facility. At the end, the process of launching a privatization tender for the resort was launched. In the first tender, no bid was collected. Now, all eyes are on July 20. If the tender goes as expected, the facility will be leased for a period of 49 years.

Nuvit Uyar has been closely following the developments. Who is Nuvit Uyar? He is the chair of the Anatoli Autism Foundation. The foundation has been carrying out important projects. The foundation has been a hope for autism in families.

“We have a proposal to the state. If no one places a bid in the upcoming tender, we want to turn it into an accessible camp. A holiday resort camp for people with autism and Down syndrome. We want to create opportunities for people who cannot go on holiday because of their disabilities. We also plan to hold rehabilitation and education programs here. We will give priority to low-income families and we plan to host more than 10,000 disabled people and 2,600 families in those facilities for free. Aside from specially designed education programs, we also plan to offer activities such as sports, music, and self-sufficiency,” Uyar said.

I do not know the outcome of the tender. This is a proposal from the Anatolia Autism Foundation and it sounds good. So, why not?

Shameful statistics

In June alone, a total of 39 women were murdered. The murderers have not been identified. Eleven of those women were killed by their husbands, five of them by their relatives, three of them by their husband through imam marriage, two of them by their boyfriends, one by her son, and one by her father. The numbers remain the same, they do not change a lot.

In June last year, 35 women were murdered. I feel ashamed when I read those news reports. When I report news like this, I grow pessimistic. Don’t you feel the same?

Our women are being murdered, our children are sexually abused. I am asking all those questions to myself, just like everybody. I still believe in the Turkish peoples’ conscience, the people I believe I know very well. This is a huge problem, a problem we need to resolve. Don’t let our women get murdered and do not let our children be abused.