Last Friday, when the news of the earthquake in the Aegean Region came, we were once again in charge and activated the Crisis Desk in the NGO Disaster Platform we established. Without wasting any time, we started the operation through our NGO brothers in Izmir.

I was planning to write on another topic this week, and even started writing about it. I was planning to write and share the article about our NGO Disaster Platform in the second half of November. However, last Friday, when the spokesperson of the Platform's Foreign Relations Commission, Ahmet, the Founder of the Corbada Tuzun Olsun Association, asked our general Whatsapp group, "What are we doing about the earthquake in Izmir?", our agenda then completely changed. The effects of the severe earthquake, the epicenter of which was determined as offshore Seferihisar, was felt even in the Marmara Region.

 

Thereupon, the Crisis Desk was activated immediately, and NGOs that are members of our Platform, which have operations in the region such as the İhtiyaç Haritasi in Izmir, Akut Foundation, AHBAP, TOG, and Hayata Destek came to work. We activated the crisis desk at Originn (https://www.originn.com.tr/).

 

An environment of joint effort

 

I went to Izmir a day after the earthquake. I attended the coordination meeting organized in the evening. It is very difficult for me to express in words the feeling of providing such coordination with the representatives of dozens of NGOs and the atmosphere created by the common efforts of those people with great hearts to do something good. I just want you to be sure of this: We have very valuable people in the country. These valuable people have the knowledge, experience and heart to overcome all kinds of difficulties when they come together and have an open path.

 

There is actually a lot to write about. There is more work to do. We are doing our best for the people of İzmir, regardless of the weekend, weekdays, night or day, and we will continue to do so.

 

At this stage, I just want to convey this. As of October 1, 2020, we officially established the NGO Disaster Platform. Thankfully, I was elected as the first term spokesperson of the platform. We were aiming to complete the preparations that had to be made in the first stage by November. The earthquake in Izmir caught us a bit unprepared. However, we will continue to do our best in this chaotic environment.

 

I will write a detailed article about the earthquake in Izmir and our work with our NGO Disaster Platform later. For now, first of all, I would like to share with you the Non-Governmental Organizations on our Platform working in İzmir. You can see the NGOs with their logos below:

Of course, the number of NGOs is increasing every day. Therefore, by next week, more than the above NGOs will have joined our platform. I will share them with you in the article I will write when the acute period in Izmir is over.

 

As a platform, our only goal is to ensure that our people suffer the least amount of damage in disasters that occur in our country. For this, we do our best in cooperation with the public. The Elazig earthquake and what we did after it is the guarantee of what we will do in future circumstances. As a reminder, I would like to share the links of the blog posts I wrote about the Elazig earthquake:

 

https://www.serhansuzer.com/en/elazigda-bizim-stklar-tarih-yaziyor

 

https://www.serhansuzer.com/en/deprem-degil-bina-oldurur

 

In the meantime, you can donate to TIDER, which I am the founder of, to support Izmir through our Platform: https://www.tider.org/

 

In the same way, you can send your donations to Izmir through our NGO brother İhtiyac Haritasi, which maps the needs. https://www.ihtiyacharitasi.org/ 

 

See you in the next detailed article that I will write about the earthquake in Izmir. Take care.

 

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