Arzu Keçeli, a guidance counselor with a state of emergency decree: “Our struggle does not start when we are arrested or dismissed. After the decree laws, yes, everything has become two, three times more difficult, but even if this process ends, the struggle of the disabled will not end. Despite everything, I set out to give people hope.”
Today, December 3rd is World Disability Day. Let me introduce you to Arzu Keçeli, a guidance counselor with a state of emergency decree. Let everyone see and hear how her already difficult life was made difficult, but despite this, she did not give up and continued her struggle.
Arzu Keçeli, who is one hundred percent visually impaired from birth, graduated from Gazi University’s Department of Guidance and Psychological Counseling in 2004 and was immediately appointed as a guidance counselor at a school affiliated to the Ministry of National Education in Hatay.
Hatay Atatürk Vocational and Technical Anatolian High School, where she worked, was the most crowded school in the city and Keçeli worked alone as a guidance counselor. She loved her profession and her students very much. For 12 years, she worked non-stop, guided her students, and even though she lost her job, she still has students she supports.
After July 15, he was suspended a week later, as if he had something to do with the coup attempt, and dismissed with the first Decree Law (KHK) issued. Keçeli, now 41 years old, was left unemployed at the beginning of his career.
It is really a great injustice to subject them to this unlawfulness when it is very difficult even for people without any disability to study, to start life, to find a job. But there is something very important that Arzu Keçeli said.
He says, “Our struggle does not start when we are arrested or dismissed. And it will not end when this process is over. Because everything we do is difficult. No environment is organized for us. We already had a struggle. If everyone graduates from one university, it is as if we are studying at two universities. When we start our education, we don’t think about how we will understand, how we will learn. Will we be able to find a book, who will read to us, will they take us to school, will the teachers be able to understand us, we have to consume ninety percent of our energy before we start. We have 10 percent energy left to learn.”
Can you imagine the devastation that people with disabilities experience when they are dismissed? All their labor and effort is wasted. Moreover, no case was opened against Keçeli and he was not reinstated.
And do you think Keçeli is ruined? No, I don’t. What did he do?
After waiting for five years in the hope that maybe things would change and get better, she took refuge in Germany in 2021 and started life from scratch, learning the language, going to the market, buying bread in a language she did not know:
“I was dismissed but no file was opened against me. I waited for five years, hoping that things would get better, but it became even harder to find a job. The fear that I would lose my freedom, the arrests going on every day, I was afraid of what would happen to me. Aimlessness, aimlessness, not being able to do anything. I also lost faith that things would change. It could get worse, but I felt that it would not get better, so I decided to leave Turkey.”
Arzu Keçeli stayed in a refugee camp until the German state made it possible for her to live on her own. She now lives alone in a house belonging to an association for the disabled. She is also attending a course for the visually impaired.
She knows that she cannot get a job without learning the language, so she is completely focused on language. “I can’t imagine myself outside of social work,” she says. She volunteers as a counselor for children.
Keçeli, who came to Germany with the motto “I want to be hope for everyone”, has only one thing he wants from everyone
“After the decree laws, yes, our struggle for life has increased 2-3 times, but even if this process ends, the struggle of the disabled will not end. If everyone else is struggling, we are struggling several times more. But if I am a little hopeless, if I say that this will not work, no one will pick me up, I have no such chance, I have to survive somehow, we can spend a very long time even for a shopping trip. I think everyone should make it easier for us. Finally, I can say this. I had a prayer when I came to Germany: I wanted to be hope for everyone. We opened a channel on Youtube. As Hand in Hand Platform, we organize a book club for people with disabilities and movie readings. I will also prepare videos in the field I was trained in.”