Ankara's Keçiören District Offers Food Aid
The Keçiören Municipality in Ankara is providing hot meals and food packages to local residents in need. The initiative is designed to support vulnerable populations within the district.
- Under the leadership of Mayor Dr. Mesut Özarslan, the municipality has launched the "KeçiKart" program, a new social support system that replaces traditional food parcels. This initiative provides a debit card to families in need, which can be used for purchasing groceries, natural gas, and stationery from local shops, aiming to offer a more dignified form of aid while supporting local businesses. - The KeçiKart program began by distributing cards to 1,800 families, with a short-term goal of reaching 5,000 households. The card is loaded with 1,000 TL for market shopping and an additional 1,000 TL for stationery and 1,100 TL for school canteen purchases for students, directly addressing food and educational needs. - The municipality operates a soup kitchen (Aşevi) that can be mobilized for crises. During the Kahramanmaraş earthquake, a mobile version was deployed, serving three meals a day to 1,600 people, including earthquake victims and rescue teams. - In a separate agricultural initiative, the municipality distributed fresh produce to 130 low-income families from its own 20-dönüm (approximately 5-acre) vegetable garden and 17-dönüm orchard. This "field-to-table" project is designed to provide fresh, healthy food to those facing economic hardship. - The broader Ankara Metropolitan Municipality, of which Keçiören is a district, has significantly increased its social aid budget. Between 2019 and 2024, under Mayor Mansur Yavaş, social assistance in the capital reached 12 billion TL, a substantial increase from the 815 million TL spent between 2014 and 2018. - Keçiören's social aid strategy is part of a larger municipal focus on technology and innovation. The municipality runs the Prof. Dr. Tunçalp Özgen Technology Center (TEKNOMER), supports student teams competing in the national TEKNOFEST technology competition, and has hosted an "AI4YOUTH" summit for high school students to develop AI-based solutions for social problems. - These local initiatives occur within a national framework for "food banking" that was established in Turkey through tax law changes in 2003 and expanded in 2005 to officially include municipalities. This legal structure provides tax incentives for businesses to donate food, cleaning, and fuel supplies to non-profits and municipalities for distribution. - The current mayor of Keçiören, Dr. Mesut Özarslan, recently resigned from the main opposition party, the Republican People's Party (CHP), citing conflicts with the party leadership. This political development provides context for his administration's ongoing and future municipal projects.
