Free Meals to Students in Beşiktaş!

The Beşiktaş Municipality has carried out a valuable project in order to meet students’ need for clean, reliable and free-of-charge meal.

The Information and Protocol Signing Ceremony for the "Öğrenci’Ye"  (# STUD'Eats) platform, which is an application aimed at meeting clean, reliable and free meal needs of university students, was carried out between the Beşiktaş Municipality and TURYİD (Turkish Restaurant and Entertainment Association). Giving a speech at the ceremony, the Beşiktaş Mayor Mr. Rıza Akpolat said they brought in something new for Beşiktaş, accomplishing a practice which exists in no other place in Turkey. Mayor said that the application will be put to the service of students pretty soon.     

The "Öğrenci’Ye" application was introduced to the public with a short video at the signing ceremony held at the Beşiktaş Municipality’s Zübeyde Ana Culture & Arts Center. The event was attended by the Beşiktaş Mayor Mr. Rıza Akpolat, TURYİD Chairman Mr. Kaya Demirer accompanied by the TURYİD Board Members as well as several restaurateurs operating in the district who provided a great support to the project. Through this Project and the "Öğrenci’Ye" application, students studying at the universities in Beşiktaş will be offered free meals by the restaurants in the district which participate the project.

Emphasizing that "Öğrenci’Ye" project is a first in Turkey, Mayor Akpolat said:
"The most successful universities of Turkey are located in Beşiktaş. Therefore, the most successful students of Turkey are in Beşiktaş. However, there encounter several difficulties during their educational lives. They can hardly meet their basic needs such as nutrition and shelter, let alone attend social and cultural activities. Although it is not directly an issue to be solved by or within the job definition of local governments, we thought over it in order to come up with a solution. I would like to extend my thanks to the TURYİD association for their great contribution in the Project we designed. The 'Öğrenci’Ye' Project, which is completely something new in Turkey, was developed as part of Beşiktaş’s quality of being a student-friendly city.”  

The TURYİD Chairman Mr. Kaya Demirer said: "Those who cannot afford to meet their basic needs will lose their hope. And I believe that in a place without hope, freedom cannot prevail. For this reason, we are very happy to be a part of such a Project, which I hope will be not limited to the Beşiktaş Municipality and will be quickly spread to other district in Istanbul with the directions from the Metropolitan Municipality."

After the speeches, the protocol was signed between the parties and the ceremony ended with a family photo.