A Great
Helper in
Education
A woman's noteworthy role in reforms in
education and in teaching leadership of a
teacher educator -her help in educational
cultural and social progress of the people
Suzan Ari ~12 Jul. 1927 - 20 Nov. 2002
"…loss of Suzan Ari we are grieving"
(Salih Cosar -Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance Economy and a Leader of the Democrat Party and formerly Minister of Education and Culture kktc ~in 'Halkin Sesi' -26 Nov. 2002)
Premier of Nth. Cyprus attended her funeral.. from Canada university education staff and others in the USA & the UK who as 'auntie' referred to her poured in messages, including from persons knighted by Britain and representing the nation in Europe, of commiseration…
Suzan Ari in educational cultural social progress of (especially Turkish speaking) Cypriots was a great helper in educational efforts of the late teacher & educator Orhan Seyfi Ari, "a vigorous fearless defender of liberties" in his columns -a thinker 'himself a school', "whose mark on the nation's history of education is not little", who a street is named after ~her help in educational efforts was enormous.
As the Greek and Turkish Cypriot pupils of her husband and many people of the British Colony of Cyprus do teacher Orhan Ari's teaching and educational and cultural leadership as teacher at elementary then Cypriot and English secondary and grammar schools and head teacher at secondary schools and lecturer at institutes his efforts and also hers, so do many from the later Republic of and still later the Northern Republic of Cyprus remember and appreciate, although she was not even a teacher, also Suzan Ari's extraordinary help in efforts in teaching and education of pupils and peoples to advance a society previously resisting education and teaching at all levels or helpless in educational and cultural advancement.
She was born in Morphou -after her compulsory education and then training as dress-maker under the British system of apprenticeships and private tuition in playing music and self education in Turkish and Greek contemporary literature and with an avid interest in current affairs (perhaps resulting from her father Mr. Uney's social activities as a successful businessman and local community leader in central Nicosia -the capital) she was one of the first to show with her husband (a young idealist teacher while teaching trying to convince authorities, people, of the need for schools, teachers, teaching and education, that co-education was not promiscuous) in 1946 the courage of conviction in cultural education that e.g., while there might be nothing wrong with the Turkish and Greek Cypriot custom of dowries by women, marriage should be for love, when she married teacher Orhan Seyfi Ari.
In Nicosia, during intercommunal troubles, in salaryless 1960s, she fed teacher Ari's many immigrant guests, stood by him to, unlike many often not paid educators, teaching staff, teachers, not emigrate but continue teaching.
In Cyprus, peoples of e.g. the city of Paphos and the town of Loudrijina, still tell of Suzan Ari's, in the budgetless days after the Second World War from mid 1940s to 1960, with young children sleepless nights to gratis make costumes for their secondary school's first taste to them of their cultural heritage (national dances, stage plays -in oil-lamp light gratis sewing flags for their celebrations of national days) which teacher Ari was instilling, teaching, awareness of.
They still tell of her opening her home in the latter place (as her husband was helping have roads and electricity and water and getting built schools [there, considered then to be with the best equipped science laboratory in the entire Middle East] and teachers for those whose lack of literacy was to the extent of many's not even seeing how their sons -especially daughters, women, could possibly benefit from teachers and education) to dentists to set up equipment in to treat people, to host artistes to put on cultural shows for them, learning and gratis teaching her husband's students skills. Mrs Ari, as regarded by Mr. Ari (dubbed by people, statesmen, writers, poets "Teacher of Teachers", "The Teacher") was 'A Great Helper' in education and cultural social progress, in a Commonwealth nation now at its level of teaching and education enjoying the highest percentage of university graduates in the entire European Union.
Suzan Ari had been to prayers on Wednesday night 20 November 2002, met, chatted, prayed with her neighbours, friends ~next morning this helper to educational cultural social progress was found to have peacefully passed away.
These verses of people's 'teacher of teachers -the Teacher' Orhan Ari apply to Suzan Ari -a great helper in education:
The pure in heart truly die never
Joyous be, in hearts they live forever
Tulips representing donations in her honour to the educational trust surrounded Mrs. Ari's coffin.
To return to List of Sites, Poems, of ORHAN ARI -click: MAIN PAGE - ANA SAYFA
