Nasreddin Hodja Preschool Built in Gagauzia was Opened

On the second day of our President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s official visit to Moldova, the Nasreddin Hodja Preschool built by TİKA in the Autonomous Territorial Unit of Gagauzia was inaugurated with the attendance of Minister of National Education Ziya Selçuk, Presidential Spokesperson İbrahim Kalın, TİKA President Serdar Çam and Presidency for Turks Abroad and Related Communities (YTB) President Abdullah Eren.

After the ceremony, Minister of National Education Selçuk gave a speech and said, “We would like to thank everyone, to all our friends who have contributed to this, and especially to TİKA. You will get a great education here and lovely people will be brought up here. You will elevate and glorify Gagauzia.” The ceremony was also attended by TİKA's Balkans and Eastern Europe Department Head Mahmut Çevik and TİKA Kishinev Coordinator Selda Özdenoğlu. After the ceremony, the Minister and the accompanying delegation watched a dance show by the preschool children. Then, the delegation visited the classrooms and distributed candies to the children. In addition, Presidency for Turks Abroad and Related Communities distributed the first set of dual-language educational materials that were prepared in both Moldovan and Gagauzian Turkish for the students at the Nasreddin Hodja Preschool.

In the Autonomous Territorial Unit of Gagauzia, after the economic instability and increased unemployment following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, many people had to go to other countries by leaving their families and their children behind. The preschool was built on an area of 8,000 sq. meters with a single story and 1,000 sq. meters of indoor area and four outdoor playgrounds in order to provide preschool education opportunities for the children of families who have gone abroad and to other regions and to provide care in better circumstances.

In the first phase, Nasreddin Hodja Preschool will serve 72 children aged between 3 to 7, offering a better and modern education to the children of Comrat, the capital of the Autonomous Territorial Unit of Gagauzia with a population of 26,000 people. Furthermore, thanks to events and training sessions that will be held at the preschool, the children will start learning about the Turkish culture at an early age. Upon the decision of the Comrat Municipal Council, the preschool was named after Nasreddin Hodja, which is a shared element of Turkish and Gagauzian cultures.