In July 2014, AAR Japan established a community center in the city of Sanliurfa located in southeastern Turkey for Syrian refugees, having no prospects of returning home, wish to settle in Turkey. At the center, we provide them with consultations on local public services, necessary for their everyday life. In addition, we offer refugees a variety of educational classes and events where Syrians can interact with the local Turkish community.
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| 155 people participated in an event held in October for the interaction between the Syrians and the Turkish. AAR staff, Junko YANAGIDA, second from the left. (October 9th, 2014) |
Syrians and Turkish hand in hand
A class for Brazilian martial art sport called Capoeira is a very popular activity among children. At first, the participants were all Syrian refugee children but gradually some Turkish children, who only used to peek inside the class rooms, joined this activity. At our workshop held in October, the participants have increased to 31 Turkish children, in addition to the 39 Syrian children. This has turned out to be a precious opportunity for the refugee children and the local Turkish children to get together, because these two groups had never had such a chance before.
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| Capoeira, which looks as if they are dancing, is popular martial art sport among children (October 27th, 2014) |
Lively Turkish language lesson with lots of questions
The most popular class is the Turkish language lesson where as many as 40 people, both adults and children, are enrolled. All the students are very eager to master Turkish, which is not their mother tongue, because it is necessary in their everyday life, and the children actively take notes during class to make new Turkish friends at the local school. The students are actively involved in class discussions, creating a lively and enthusiastic atmosphere. Since this January, we have provided a pick-up service for persons with disabilities so that they too can attend the language class.
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| Students are actively involved in class discussions (November 8th, 2014) |
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| Adults as well as children are taking Turkish language lessons. The students take notes and work hard to be able to live a relatively normal life in Turkey. (November 8th, 2014) |
Establishing a second community center
At present, there are not enough community centers to cover the needs of the increasing refugee population in southeastern Turkey. Therefore, AAR has decided to establish a new center and has asked our local partner organization to continue operating the current center.
Four years have passed since the outbreak of the Syria crisis in 2011, but there is still no hope that the civil war will come to an end. Since September 2014, when the armed group called IS (the Islamic State) attacked Ayn-al-Arabe (also called “Kobane” in Kurdish), the number of refugees in Turkey has sharply increased to approx. 1.7 million in March 2015 (UNHCR). Against this background, it is essential that the external assistance is conducted in two parallel and complementary efforts; i) to provide a mid- to long-term support for those who are trying hard to acclimatize to their new life in Turkey following prolonged hardships as refugees and ii) to provide an immediate emergency assistance for recent refugees in acute need of basic necessities, including food. AAR will continue to provide adequate assistance corresponding to the multidimensional needs of the Syrian refugees in Turkey.
These activities have been made possible thanks to your warm support and the funds provided by JPF (Japan Platform).
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| Junko YANAGIDA, originally from Tokyo, has been in charge of supporting the refugees in Syria since May, 2013. She hopes to carry on the projects for Syrian people to make the local children happy. |
Japanese-English translation by Ms. Yoko Natsume
English editing by Karl Yanagisawa
The article on this page has been translated by volunteers as part of the AAR Japan's Volunteer Programme. Their generous contributions allow us to spread our activities and ideas globally, through an ever-growing selection of our reports from the field.
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