The trustee appointed to the Van Metropolitan Municipality changed the daycare in the municipality that taught in Kurdish from Perperok Kurdish Daycare to Van Metropolitan Municipality Children’s Daycare and banned Kurdish, changing the curriculum to Turkish.

With the trustee appointed to the Van Metropolitan Municipality, all women’s, youth and culture efforts came to a halt. All opportunities provided by the Municipality for women and the youth have been suspended. The right to free public transport once a week for women has been cancelled. All the real estate that belonged to the Municipality has been gifted to AKP members and supporters. The parks and green spaces people used for rest and relaxation have been sold off and opened for development.

Hundreds of children grew up with the Perperok Kurdish Daycare that was opened by DBP’s Van Metropolitan Municipality in 2015 and taught an entirely Kurdish language curriculum. Interest for the completely free Daycare was very high from the people of Van because the classes were in Kurdish. Children spoke in their mother tongue and learned songs, stories, tongue twisters, colors and numbers in Kurdish. With the first Kurdish language daycare by the Municipality, Kurdish children received education in their mother tongue for the first time.

That was why the Van Governorate didn’t approve it: Because its name was in Kurdish. And one of the first acts of the trustee was to change the name of the daycare and ban Kurdish. The name was changed from Perperok to Van Metropolitan Municipality Children’s Daycare, and a fee was introduced. The education in the daycare switched to Turkish. With the banning of Kurdish, many families took their children out of the daycare.