60+ residents make up of about one fifth of the population of Beşiktaş. The Beşiktaş Municipality set it as a goal to take its policies for the elderly to a more sustainable and more qualified level with the anticipation that the proportion of the elderly population to the overall population of the district will increase more and more in the upcoming years. Believing that its primary responsibility is to enable elderly people to have a say in every field of the social life and to participate in libertarian policy making processes, the Beşiktaş Municipality predicates its policies on direct participation and well-being of the elderly.

In accordance with these objectives and with the purpose of taking them to a superior level, the membership process that the Beşiktaş Municipality started in 2017 to join the Age-Friendly Cities has been finalized. At the end of this process, the Beşiktaş Municipality has been deemed worthy of being a member of the Organization. Being the fourth ever Turkish Municipality and the only Municipality to be accepted to the Age-Friendly Cities from Turkey in 2019, the Beşiktaş Municipality achieved a huge success.

Stating that they will bring Beşiktaş into further conformity with active aging processes, the Beşiktaş Mayor Rıza Akpolat said: “I would like to state that we are ready for this new process as the whole organization. In accordance with our strategic plan, we have been working on programs aimed at the fields of “Productivity at Old Age” and “Active Ageing”. Participating in the process of being an elderly-friendly city and becoming a part of this dynamic process will give us the opportunity to benefit from the experiences of other cities and sharing our own experience in this field. I would also like to express that we are really excited about this process and it has made us happy beyond measure to see that all the efforts our units have been making for a long time in the field of elderly studies are crowned with the honor of becoming an elderly-friendly city.”

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