Diyarbakır Metropolitan Municipality has opened the Substance Addiction Counselling and Training Centre to provide support for individuals struggling with addiction and their families. Speaking at the opening, Co-Mayor Serra Bucak emphasised the importance of the centre’s establishment, noting that addressing this pressing issue requires great dedication and responsibility.
The Department of Social Services launched the Substance Addiction Counselling and Training Centre at the Stone House in Sümerpark Shared Living Space, with the aim of raising social awareness on substance addiction and offering psychosocial support to individuals with addiction and their relatives. The opening ceremony was attended by Metropolitan Co-Mayors Serra Bucak and Doğan Hatun, department heads, district municipality co-mayors, representatives and members of NGOs active in this field, and representatives of political parties.
Prior to the opening ceremony, a press meeting was held in the conference hall of Sümerpark Shared Living Space to provide information about the Substance Addiction Counselling and Training Centre.
‘Here, Starting Anew Will Be Possible’
Opening the meeting, Serap Yıldırım, Head of the Department of Social Services, stated that the centre’s work had been shaped with the encouragement and motivation given by Metropolitan Co-Mayors Serra Bucak and Doğan Hatun. Yıldırım noted that a significant budget had been allocated to these efforts, adding: “We are putting the psychologists and sociologists who will work in this field through a training process. Here, starting anew will be possible, and in this struggle we will not leave anyone alone.”
Co-Mayor Bucak: We Are Pursuing the Lost Ten Years
Speaking at the meeting, Co-Mayor Serra Bucak recalled that in 2014–2015 there was the Hevra Centre operating under the municipality to combat substance addiction, as well as many similar initiatives established by district municipalities, but these had been disrupted. Bucak continued:
“If these initiatives had not been interrupted, we would no doubt still be discussing the ways and methods of combating substance addiction today, but the picture would not have been this severe. Our experience shows us this: wherever we put our hand, we have faced enormous devastation. We have been pointing this out for the past ten months. At times we face criticism, as if we were presenting this as an excuse for the work we could not carry out. But it is not so. We are obliged to defend and explain our work everywhere. We are not chasing excuses; on the contrary, we are pursuing the ten lost years. When I say ‘we’, I do not mean the elected administration or the party that came here with a political mandate, but the ten years lost for the people of the whole region. For this reason, we must value this work even more than yesterday, we must embrace it more strongly.”
‘We Want to Expand the Work’
At the opening of the centre, Co-Mayor Bucak underlined the need to explain its significance: “Because this is a difficult and pressing area. Confronting this burning issue requires both confidentiality and great dedication and responsibility. As DBB, we have set out with four expert colleagues for now. Whoever wishes to support us in this field, from the districts or beyond, we want to expand this work, and we attach great importance to it. We represent a will, and this budget is the people’s budget. If this budget is not to be allocated to the people’s most urgent issue, then where should it be allocated? We expect this sensitivity from all district municipalities, and we must already put forward as a task the establishment of stations in the districts.”
Bucak added that they would bring children, young people and all segments of society together with sports and cultural centres, and would further expand their work.
Presentation Delivered
Following the speeches, Social Services Specialist Berfin Ayyıldız, who will work at the centre, gave a presentation on what addiction is and why the centre had been opened.
After the meeting ended, the Co-Mayors toured the centre and received information on the work to be carried out.
