Turkey’s TIKA reaches out to the disabled worldwide

The Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TIKA) spearheads Turkey’s efforts to help people with disabilities around the world. In the past five years, the agency delivered more than 5,000 pieces of equipment and prosthetic implants for the disabled in various countries in Asia, Europe, Africa and South America.

TIKA delivered 358 devices and assisting equipment for the visually impaired and another 195 hearing aids for the hearing impaired. Prosthetic implants and other materials for thousands of people with other physical disabilities were also delivered by the agency.

TIKA also organizes various projects for the disabled, such as, “I Overcome My Disabilities with Turkey,” a program it runs in the Balkans. The project, which was first launched in Bosnia-Herzegovina and then expanded to Albania, Montenegro, Kosovo and North Macedonia, offers special training programs, cultural and social events for the disabled, as well as training for teachers of students with special needs. Recently, the project debuted in Romania’s Bucharest with a vocational workshop for visually impaired students.

In the Gaza Strip where frequent power cuts hinder access to electrical medical devices that disabled people need to carry on with their lives, TIKA set up solar energy panels for 30 people in need of home care. It also delivered hearing aids to 30 people in the Gaza Strip, while 50 wheelchairs were delivered to people with disabilities in the occupied West Bank.

TIKA also delivered aid to a paralympics federation in Afghanistan and renovated a classroom for students with special needs in Kyrgyzstan. In the Georgian capital Tbilisi, it installed six elevators on pedestrian overpasses for the disabled and delivered aid to a center helping rehabilitation of the disabled.