THE TRNC’S FIRST LADY Meral Akıncı has visited a Turkish school in North London, on Saturday 24th October, during her visit to London last week.
Meral Akıncı.
She visited Turkish school Ali Rıza Değirmencioğlu in Wood Green where a celebration of 29th October, the celebration day of Turkey becoming a republic. Meral Akıncı was joined by TRNC London Representative Oya Tuncalı, Specialist Writing Chief of Presidency Cenk Gürçağ and some officials from the representative office.
The Republic Celebration event began with a one minute standing silence for the fallen soldiers in Turkey and singing the Turkish National Anthem (Istiklal Marşı). Students read out poems and sang songs for the guests and these were followed by a speech from TRNC First Lady, Meral Akıncı. She said: “It isn’t easy to set up an education system and keep that system going with financial and moral support in a foreign country. Ali Rıza Değirmencioğlu first came to this country in 1967 and after he settled in together with his wife, he built the grounds of this school, obtained financial and moral support, guaranteed that he could make this work and made several investments to make sure the students of this school were and are able to continue their education here.”
Following her speech, the young pupils took to the stage with a short play performing Mustafa Kemal Atatürk’s life, receiving a great round of applause.
After the performance, Ali Rıza Değirmencioğlu School Headteacher Sevtap Kemal, gave Meral Akıncı and Oya Tuncalı bouquets of flowers to thank them for their attendance/
She continued by saying: “I would like to congratulate the families, for persuading their children, bringing them here, allowing them to love this school, take ownership of their roots and allow them to perfect their language of Turkish in foreign country. I congratulate you from the heart and thank you all. Living in a second country, means adapting to a second culture, second environment and social life, I know what this means and the difficulties of it too. I understand you all very well and congratulate you all.”
The event ended with group photos being taken.
