MÜSİAD Women and the MÜSİAD Health Sector Board hosted special citizens at the MÜSİAD Head Office with the event titled "Take Notice Without Barriers, Discover Without Barriers", organized within the scope of the Week of Persons with Disabilities. Specially talented individuals who came from MÜSİAD member care centres in different provinces performed folk songs of their regions and gave talent displays. Sharing his thoughts at the program, in which labour attained its true value, MÜSİAD President Mahmut Asmalı stated that there is no barrier at all to sharing life.

MÜSİAD organized an event titled "Take Notice Without Barriers, Discover Without Barriers" within the scope of the Week of Persons with Disabilities. Sharing his assessments at the program organized under the coordination of MÜSİAD Women and the MÜSİAD Health Sector Board, MÜSİAD President Mahmut Asmalı stated that care centres for persons with disabilities today serve as a home for many citizens in need of care and said: "These centres have attained a structure that operates 24/7, in which, alongside the patient's personal needs, health follow-ups are also carried out and psycho-social support services are provided".

"We Are One Big Family"

Minister of Family and Social Services Derya Yanık, who shared her assessments at the "Take Notice Without Barriers, Discover Without Barriers" program, stated that the program was impressive and full of emotion and thanked the guests who gave performances. Explaining that as a ministry they were holding many events together within the scope of the Week of Persons with Disabilities, Minister Yanık continued her remarks as follows:

"I am additionally delighted that MÜSİAD has a pioneering role here as well, as it has had in many social responsibility projects since the moment it was founded. There are certain indispensables to being a society bound to one another and to becoming a strong nation. Social responsibility is one of these indispensables. With the inspiration we draw from our culture and our faith, we meet our needs by lending one another a shoulder, without discriminating between disabled and non-disabled, old and young, woman and man, and we symbolize this with the sentence 'we are one big family'. We work to ensure the full, equal, natural and active participation in life of every member of our family; in this direction we both lend an ear to the experiences of our citizens with disabilities and support academic activities. Our aim is for all our citizens to lead a happier, more peaceful and more secure life."

"The founders of MÜSİAD member care centres for persons with disabilities and the elderly are playing a pioneering role in the social field"

Sharing his thoughts at the program, MÜSİAD President Mahmut Asmalı emphasized that there is no barrier at all to sharing life. Stating that as the representatives of a culture that values labour they are honoured to host such an event, President Asmalı said that the founders of the MÜSİAD member care centres for persons with disabilities and the elderly across the four corners of Türkiye play a pioneering role in the social field:

"We have all seen together that today's 'Take Notice Without Barriers, Discover Without Barriers' organization has an important mission. The care centres for persons with disabilities, whose operating process was shaped in 2006 by our President Mr. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, have today become a home for many of our citizens in need of care. These centres have attained a structure that operates 24/7, in which, alongside the patient's personal needs, health follow-ups are also carried out and psycho-social support services are provided. Thus our citizens with disabilities continue their lives in professional institutions where home and hospital services are provided together, without being cut off from life thanks to social activities. I want to underline with pride and gratitude that throughout the pandemic period our elderly and disabled were cared for meticulously in our care homes in Türkiye. Shift systems were established throughout the 15-day quarantine processes. The staff protected our disabled and elderly from the destructive effect of the pandemic without even going to their homes. Our centres, which received accessibility certificates before many public and private sector institutions, have also set an example for other institutions in this sense. The founders of the MÜSİAD member care centres for persons with disabilities and the elderly look after what has been entrusted to them with this awareness and play a pioneering role in the sector. Our MÜSİAD member care centres, as well as undertaking the care of our disabled and elderly, also bring their talents to the fore with artistic workshop activities."

Love homes are becoming hope for the future

Explaining that such events, which carry great meaning for individuals with disabilities and the elderly, will turn into a far more meaningful picture with MÜSİAD's institutional support, and that the disabled and the elderly will both feel more valued and see their motivation increase, President Asmalı expressed the wish that this organization, held in order to discover the talents of the special guests staying at the care centres and to provide them with motivation, would become traditional in the years to come. Conveying that they attach great importance to every MÜSİAD member businessperson taking part in such social aid activities, President Asmalı used the following words: "Our Akyuva Foundation, which we established in 2015, looks after 4 love homes and 25 disadvantaged families. In fact, we do not look after them. They look after us. Their prayers look after us. Thanks to their blessing, our work and our activities become far more successful. In this sense, our MÜSİAD possesses great sensitivity".

"The greatest barrier is being unable to take notice, being unable to discover"

Emphasizing that with the Take Notice Without Barriers, Discover Without Barriers program they wanted to raise awareness, MÜSİAD Women President Meryem İlbahar, recalling world-renowned names, assessed: "The greatest barrier is being unable to take notice, being unable to discover":

"The greatest barrier is being unable to take notice, being unable to discover. These success stories, which emerge as a result of all kinds of struggle, have always been a source of inspiration for us and will continue to be so. Louis Braille, who lost his sight at the age of 3, became a light for our special individuals with the alphabet to which he gave his own name. One of the success stories born of difficulties seen as barriers belongs to a guest of ours who was born with cerebral palsy, whose struggle I have witnessed very closely, and who is among us today. These success stories are not always far from us; sometimes they are very close to us, within our own family. With such a person you witness that barriers said to be insurmountable are surmounted and that what is said to be impossible is done; with their positive energy, the struggle they never give up on, their outlook on life and their achievements, they become your source of inspiration and increase your awareness. I would also like to touch in my speech on the supporters and companions of our special individuals. They are special families and they always live with hope; the effort shown is in order to keep firmly alive the special individuals whom God has entrusted to them. Taking our place in this struggle, we too are ready to do our part in the action plans developed so that special individuals can take a fully active role in life. In this sense, as MÜSİAD Women we are aware of our responsibilities."

"We aim to contribute to the employment of our special individuals"

MÜSİAD Health Sector Board Chairman Hüseyin Sarpkaya said that with the event they aim to contribute to the employment of special individuals. Also drawing attention to micro-production work in special care homes, Sarpkaya continued his assessment as follows:

"As is stated in the noble hadith, '(those believers) who are faithful to their trusts and their covenants'; I would like to state that the founders of the MÜSİAD member Care Centres for Persons with Disabilities and the Elderly look after what has been entrusted to them with this awareness, and that they moreover assume an effective and pioneering role in the sector. We are the adherents of a belief in which the trust is held sacred, and we try to carry out the work we do in line with this belief, and with the permission of our Lord we will continue to work. As the MÜSİAD Health Sector Board, in the continuation of our projects we have the desire to carry out work on our members' contribution to special employment and on the participation of special individuals in social life through micro-production activities. We particularly wish to undertake joint projects with our ministry on these matters. I thank separately the founders and staff of the MÜSİAD member Centres for the Care of Persons with Disabilities who contributed to this organization, and our program partner the MÜSİAD Women's board, for this voluntary work, effort and self-sacrifice. Undoubtedly, remembering the issues and difficulties of special individuals and becoming aware of their achievements is too important to fit into a single program. However, believing that the whole of society must act with a spirit of mobilization in order to solve this issue, as Türkiye's most important and most effective businessmen's association we once again say Take Notice Without Barriers, Discover Without Barriers."