Minister of National Education Süleyman Soylu said during his speech at the Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD) Accreditation Ceremony that Türkiye learned from previous mistakes and raised awareness about disasters.

Soylu stated that the current disaster management in the country has the required capacity and coordination and pointed out to disaster risk reduction plans.

There are total of 28,496 assembly areas and 2,860 sheltering areas in the entire country.

36 NGOs are accredited by AFAD and 27 others are attending accreditation training programs in order to receive their certificates.

Noting that Türkiye is located on an area which faces natural disasters, Soylu said it manages to respond emergencies in the country as well as sending aid and teams to disaster hit countries.

Soylu reminded that Türkiye was the first country that provided its helping hand to Croatia in the aftermath of devastating earthquake.

“Although there were countries which are richer than us, we are always the first to help oppressed and victimized people in the world for the last 4 years,” said Soylu.

As a part of 2021 Disaster Training Year, 56 million 600 thousand people received disaster training and this 2022 is declared as the Disaster Exercise Year.

“We are planning to organize 54,302 exercises this year. We have already completed 10 percent of our target, in other words, we have organized approximately 5,000 disaster exercises in the first 4 months of 2022,” stated Soylu.

Meanwhile, Head of AFAD Yunus Sezer stated that disaster management knowledge and capacity is expanding every day and noted that accredited organizations, volunteers and related state organs are an important part of this development. 

“Accredited organizations, volunteers and approximately 5,743 local support teams are providing important capacity. Today, 14 nongovernmental organizations have joined our family,” said Sezer.