Since its establishment, the Soil, Fertilizer, and Water Resources Central Research Institute has been serving a wide range of stakeholders, including farmers, universities, public institutions, and the private sector.
An essential aspect of a contemporary institute is to closely follow technological developments and strengthen its infrastructure to provide the best service to its beneficiaries. In this context, in order to continue the institute's activities without slowing down, the institute implemented the project "Improvement of Physical Infrastructure to Facilitate Access to Services for the Elderly and Disabled - Development of Physical Infrastructure Aimed at Facilitating Easy Access for Disabled and Elderly Individuals to Institute Services" within the framework of the Development Ministry, Ankara Development Agency Financial Support Program in 2014. The project was completed in 2015, removing barriers to the services provided by the institute since that date.
With this project, our institute aims to constitute an important indicator of these special individuals being perceived as an integral part of society. The main purpose of the project is to ensure the effective utilization of all areas where the institute provides services by disabled and elderly individuals. Additionally, it aims to establish institute infrastructure that enables these individuals to access physical environments, information, communication technologies, and systems on equal terms with others, and to ensure the sustainability of the existing infrastructure.
As known, the 10th Development Plan clearly emphasizes the need to meet the needs of the elderly and disabled individuals to benefit from equal opportunities, to improve their quality of life, and to take the necessary measures for their participation in social life and satisfaction with the services they receive. It is our greatest joy that these special individuals do not encounter obstacles while receiving services from our institution in urban life or in business life.
From this point onwards, the need to improve the infrastructure of our institute has begun with the excitement of being able to make a small touch to the lives of these special individuals, far beyond a necessity. With this project, our institute, which serves all of Türkiye and is accepted as a reference by our Ministry, will prioritize not only fulfilling our responsibility towards these special individuals but also spreading this awareness in public institutions.
Within the scope of the project, the necessary physical infrastructure has been established within the campus to ensure that disabled and/or elderly individuals benefit from the equal opportunities provided to other visitors from the entrance of the institute campus to the exit. For this purpose, an accessible parking lot, yellow stripes, and pedestrian paths have been constructed outside the building. Within the institute building, in order to facilitate the easy access of disabled individuals to the floors, a disabled elevator, waiting room, monitor-based electronic sample acceptance system, software and printer systems necessary to provide access to report outputs both via the institute and via the web have been established; and a wheelchair has been provided for comfortable movement within the institute. To meet personal needs within the institute, lavatories (male/female toilets) have been rearranged to be usable by disabled individuals.
The inauguration ceremony of the services provided was held in June 2015 with the participation of officials from many institutions and organizations.
