Izmir Metropolitan Municipality won four awards at the “Healthy Cities best practice competition”, which was organized by the Association of Healthy Cities for the eleventh time this year.The winners of the “Healthy Cities best practice competition”, organized by the Association of Healthy Cities for the eleventh time this year, were announced. Izmir Metropolitan Municipality was awarded four awards in the competition, in which 35 member municipalities applied with 102 projects. Izmir Metropolitan Municipality, which participated in the competition with eight projects, won the award in the healthy urban planning category with “Social Distance and Bicycle Paths in Izmir” but also received the Special Jury Award for his projects “Agricultural Forecasting and Early Warning System” in the healthy environment category, “Protecting Our Mental Health in the Pandemic” in the healthy life category and “Halkın Bakkalı” in the social responsibility category.
Convened under the chairmanship of Ruşen Keleş
The competition was opened in the categories of “social responsibility”, “healthy urban planning”,”healthy living”” and “healthy environment”. The jury of the competition evaluated 9 projects from the category “Social Responsibility of metropolitan municipalities”, 6 projects from the category “healthy urban planning”, 8 projects from the category “healthy life” and 13 projects from the category “healthy environment”.“Metropolitan District Municipalities” and “Provincial District Municipalities” projects were evaluated separately in four categories.
Other members of the competition jury, chaired by Rushen Keleş, are Prof. Dr. Feza Karaer, Prof. Dr. Emine Didem Evci Kiraz, Prof. Dr. Bülent Yılmaz, Prof. Dr. Tülin Vural Aslan, Assoc. Dr. Asım Mustafa Ayten and Murat Ar.
The award ceremony of the competition is scheduled to be held in Edirne in October.
Award-winning projects:
Social Responsibility Award- “People's Grocer”
Mayor of Izmir metropolitan municipality Tunç Soyer's election promises are among the people's, small producers to support, cooperatives to market their products, consumers to reach healthy, economic and reliable food. The project aims to increase employment in the countryside and prevent poverty in the city. After the first one was opened in Kemeraltı, in a short span of time “Halkın Bakkalı” opened in Konak Gültepe, Bayraklı Özkanlar, Karşıyaka Yenigirne, Menemen Ulukent and Buca Kasaplar which is sixth branch.
There are 300 different products from product groups such as fruits and vegetables, meat, dairy products, various breakfast foods, pulses, olive oil, spices and cosmetics in the "People's Grocer", where the products of their cooperatives from all over Turkey, especially in Izmirare offered for sale without intermediaries.Product diversity is increasing every day with products obtained from cooperatives throughout the country.
Healthy Life Award - “Protecting Our Mental Health in the Pandemic”
This project is especially designed for those who feel in need of psychological support, especially citizens under the age of 20 and over 65 who are restricted to curfew during the pandemic period. Also aimed to increase knowledge and awareness, instill confidence and provide psychosocial support for all segments who feel they need psychological support.The project consists of information materials and psychological support line.Psychological support line is the first leg of the project carried out by Izmir Metropolitan Municipality Department of Community Health.The books“preventive mental health in the pandemic” and “Tunç Soyer explain childrenthe New Coronavirus” are the second leg of the project, while the videos “preventive mental health in the pandemic” and “Child-Adult Game in the pandemic process” are the third leg of the project.
Healthy Environment Award – “Agricultural Forecasting and Early Warning System”
The project aims to reduce the impact of unordinary weather changes on farmers due to global climate change. It aims for farmers to have information about temperature, air humidity, rainfall amount, wind speed and direction, soil temperature, sunbathing, soil moisture and similar information for their land.The project, carried out by the Department of agricultural services of the Izmir Metropolitan Municipality, was started from Kemalpaşa, Selçuk, Menemen, Bergama and Ödemiş districts. Project aimed to prevent the loss of spraying and irrigation owing to the spraying and irrigation recommendations received by the farmer.
Healthy Urban Planning Award – “Social Distance and Bicycle Paths in Izmir”
Izmir Metropolitan Municipality, which produces projects for the development of public transportation, pedestrian and bicycle transportation infrastructure in order to reduce the use of motor vehicles within the framework of sustainable transportation policies,aims to enable society to adopt new urban mobility in Izmir, where social distance is maintained with 40 kilometers of “separated bicycle paths”, “shared bicycle paths” and “bicycle paths”.
Izmir Metropolitan Municipality, which has started 400 hand-foot support apparatus studies in order to ensure the safety of bicycle users in traffic and to ensure more comfortable waiting, has implemented nearly 500 bicycle parking apparatus in about 40 points.Izmir Metropolitan Municipality, which continues to determine 685 bicycle parking spaces in 50 regions, has increased the number of bicycle transport apparatus from 60 to 292 in order to strengthen bus-bicycle integration.Izmir Metropolitan Municipality has increased the number of stations to 40 by adding 6 new stations to the existing stations of BISim, which is a bicycle sharing system, in the last year. It is aimed to add 10 more stations in 2020.On World Cycling Day, 3 June 2020, 70 tandem bicycles were added to the sharing system, especially for the use of visually impaired cyclists.Izmir, the first city to join the European Bicycle Route Network (EuroVelo) from Turkey, continues to work on a 500-kilometer bicycle route connecting the ancient cities of Bergama and Ephesus.35 free repair kiosks and 50 bicycle pumps will be applied on this 500 kilometer route, which is a continuation of the EuroVelo 8-Mediterranean route.