Imagine your entire life being turned upside down by a natural disaster that was completely out of your control. Your home was demolished, your workplace was reduced to rubble, and your family was forced to relocate due to not having a choice. Southern and central Turkey and northern and western Syria had experienced a series of high-magnitude earthquakes that killed over 47,000 people and caused over US $105 billion worth of damage between both countries.
Disasters such as these require a large bandwidth of people and organizations willing to help restore areas that experienced destruction so that residents can be brought back safely to restart their lives. Startup Boat has initiated a support system to bring supplies and resources over to Turkey and Syria, with the help of the following partners:
The Partners
Turkish residents clean out rented spaces in preparation for storage use (courtesy)
Active Efforts: Turkey and Syria
The work being conducted by our band of organizations hits a multitude of the challenges being faced within Turkey and Syria. Deliverables are being flown out to reach Iskenderun, Turkey via Turkish Airlines. Within these air-flown deliveries include food and supplies from the World Food Program. Delivery trucks are being coordinated on the ground to bring the loads of deliverable to rented spaces in the area. We at Startup Boat have rented five spaces in Turkey and hired local residents who’ve lost their jobs to help clean them out for storage. Simultaneously, RefAid is helping distribute services over a larger area with local staff to prevent the rise of a centralized refugee camp structure. The goal with this method is to avoid the formation of “ghettos”. Psychosocial support is also being prepared through “train the trainer” approaches.
The method of Training the Trainer works by having new participants watching an experienced trainer teach, followed by completing exercises, and then practicing teaching segments to other participants. This creates a trickle effect of escalated learning and growing, in this case for the psychosocial support needed to aid in the mental health of earthquake victims.
Long-Term Efforts
While the efforts previously listed are designed to help in more of a short term period, we need to coordinate long-term support for Turkey and Syria, as the damage created is more than physical and mental. The political and societal standing in Turkey is progressively worsening, so it is important to prepare and implement educational programs, food-management programs, psychosocial support programs, employment programs and peaceful residency programs in as many areas as quickly and as lastingly as possible.
How can we help? Startup Boat creates user groups for educational providers, employers, and helpers of different industries to introduce our incubation program. The StartupBoat incubation program, Goalster, supports projects grown on StartupBoats to enable them through specific goals, funding, and mentorship.
We Need Your Help
Natural disasters are unfortunately out of our control, but it is up to us to figure out the proper way to react and help rebuild areas in need while supporting the individuals affected by them. To offer your support for Turkey and Syria or obtain more information, please contact paula@startupboat.org or turkey@startupboat.org.