President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's spouse Emine Erdoğan expressed her happiness to complete such an inspiring project and also her wish to raise responsible individuals who are sensible to nature.

 

"We wish that our young generation would have high environmental awareness. If we fail to establish areas where children practice their knowledge, we could not achieve our goals. Children are spending the majority of their time at school. Due to this reason, turning the physical structure of schools into a nature friendly environment is very important," said Emine Erdoğan.

 

"The Ministry of National Education adopted an innovative approach and included at least one school from every district in the project in order to transform school buildings into environmentally friendly structures. The Ministry installed LED lamps with sensors, solar energy panels and placed zero waste boxes in the schools. They also establish a storing system for using rain water in irrigation.  They have founded Zero Waste Libraries established from recycled materials at schools. Children have the opportunity to learn how to use cycled materials in their lives," said Erdoğan.

  

Noting that city life caused people to lose their interaction with nature, Emine Erdoğan stated, "Unfortunately, children are spending their lives at home in front of screens. According to a survey about information technology use among children, 90 percent of children are using the internet every day and 67 percent of them are using the internet for playing games. Attention deficit and hyperactivity are very common in today's children while adults are suffering from depression, high blood pressure and diabetes. Studies show that interaction with nature heals disorders."

 

Emine Erdoğan noted that nature deprivation is a term special to our age and nature deprived are living in cities.

 

"Children are under the impact of this negative condition. This lifestyle causes an increase in their academic failure. It is an undeniable fact that body and soul need nature," stressed Erdoğan.

 

Meanwhile, Minister of National Education Mahmut Özer reminded that every project which was carried out under the auspices of Emine Erdoğan was completed within two months adding that the Environmentally Friendly 1000 Schools project was also supported by Ms. Erdoğan.

 

"We have completed this project within two months, too. We have installed solar energy plants, rainwater collection units at selected schools. We have used compost machines in order to recycle organic waste and used them at school gardens. We will be proud to have 1000 environmentally friendly schools in our education system. Our Ministry allocated 300 thousand lira to this project," said Minister Özer.

 

Özer stated that the project will not be limited to only these 1000 schools and they are aiming at disseminating this project to all schools in the country.

 

"We will initiate a new project again under the auspices of Emine Erdoğan with the purpose of turning all our schools into environmentally friendly structures," said Özer.

  

Minister Özer's spouse Nebahat Özer, National Education, Culture, Sports Commission Chairman Emrullah İşler, Ankara Governor Vasip Şahin and Deputy Minister of National Education Sadri Şensoy were also present at the ceremony.