Mustafa Şentop, Speaker of the Grand National Assembly of Türkiye, Inaugurated TİKA’s Projects in Croatia

Mustafa Şentop, Speaker of the Grand National Assembly of Türkiye (GNAT), inaugurated the sensory square and sensory garden and the multimedia studio built by Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TİKA) at Vinko Bek Center for Education for Visually Impaired, during his visit to Croatia.

Mustafa Şentop, Speaker of the Grand National Assembly of Türkiye, visited Croatia to attend the First Parliamentary Summit of the International Crimea Platform. After completing his meetings in Zagreb, the capital of Croatia, Speaker Şentop inaugurated the sensory square and sensory garden and the multimedia studio built at Vinko Bek Center for Education for Visually Impaired, the first center for people with visual impairment in southern Europe.

The multimedia studio

Thanks to the multimedia studio built at Vinko Bek Center for Education for Visually Impaired, the content required for the education and psychosocial rehabilitation of people with visual impairment was prepared digitally and made available to all beneficiaries.

The studio continues to contribute to the education and rehabilitation of people with visual impairment by digitizing current news stories, interviews on several topics, elocution training, and events in which beneficiaries can actively participate. It also allows people with visual impairment to take advantage of career opportunities, for instance as sound operators.

Sensory garden and sensory square

The sensory garden and sensory square built at the center play a major role in the education and rehabilitation of people with visual impairment, the development of their motor abilities and non-visual senses, their independent living and social integration, and their ability to cope with the psychological stress caused by their visual impairment.

The sensory garden creates the necessary environment for people with visual impairment to grow plants and take care of animals such as birds and insects without any help and allows them to receive gardening training. The sensory square, which was built adjacent to the sensory garden, offers ergotherapy to the beneficiaries, who make souvenirs using crops grown in the garden, such as lavender.

Vinko Bek Center for Education for Visually Impaired

Vinko Bek Center for Education for Visually Impaired replaced the National Institute for the Blind, which was founded in 1895 by Vinko Bek, the first teacher for students with visual impairment (typhlopedagogue) in southern Europe.

The center, which has 146 staff members, provides education for nearly 400 people of all ages with any type of visual impairment, including newborns with congenital visual impairment and adults who have later become visually impaired.