A brief history of Turkish Hearing Aid Importers and Manufacturers Association (İşitder),

Back in 90’s, hearing aid importers in Turkey would have to sign agreements with Social Security Institution and the Government Retirement Fund. What brought the importers together were their collective efforts in solving issues with these institutions. Back and forth trips to Ankara by different company representatives would be done in order to put things right. These trips showed us that the officials then had little clue as to what a hearing aid is and what it does, or that we just had not informed them sufficiently. In time, increasing problems meant more and more trips to Ankara and less time for business trips to our own dealers.

That is when we realized our scattered endeavours were not taken seriously and we needed to evolve into a unified force: an association whose job is to coordinate, promote and discipline the works of individuals and companies in the sector; to ensure that sales of hearings aids be carried out in line with ethical and scientific principles and the standards in developed countries; to inform the society and raise awareness about hearing problems and aids.

With these in mind, İşitder was found on October 6th 2006 with founding members Tamer Kutsal, Tarık Köroğlu, Hürol Erişçi, Selmin Pirali, Yelten Yıldız, Memet Ateş, Ersin Oray. İşitder is the first -and after more than 10 years- still the biggest NGO in hearing sector.