I was planning to write about something else this week and had even started writing. I was planning to write and share the article about our NGO Disaster Platform in the second half of November. However, last Friday, when Ahmet, the Spokesperson for the Platform’s Foreign Relations Committee and Founder of the Çorbada Tuzun Olsun Association, asked in our general WhatsApp group, “What are we doing about the earthquake in İzmir?” our agenda changed completely. The impact of the earthquake, whose epicenter was determined to be off the coast of Seferihisar, was felt even in the Marmara Region.
The Crisis Desk was immediately activated, and NGOs affiliated with our Platform in İzmir, such as Needs Map, Akut Foundation, AHBAP, TOG, and Support to Life, which have operations in the region, got to work. We activated the crisis desk on Originn (https://www.originn.com.tr/ ).
An Environment Created by a Joint Effort
I arrived in İzmir one day after the earthquake. I attended a coordination meeting organized in the evening. It’s hard to put into words the feeling of achieving such coordination with representatives from dozens of NGOs and the atmosphere created by the joint effort of these big-hearted people to achieve something. I just want to assure you of this: We have very valuable people in this country. These valuable people, when united and given the opportunity, possess the knowledge, experience, and courage to overcome any challenge.
In fact, there’s a lot to write about. There’s still much to do. Weekends, weekdays, day and night, we’re doing everything we can for the people of Izmir, and we will continue to do so.
At this stage, I just want to say this: On October 1, 2020, we officially established the NGO Disaster Platform. Thankfully, I was elected as the Platform’s first-term spokesperson. We were aiming to complete the initial preparations by November. The earthquake in Izmir caught us a little off guard. Nevertheless, we will continue to do our best in this chaotic environment.
I will later write a detailed article about the earthquake in Izmir and the work we’ve done with our NGO Disaster Platform. For now, I’d like to share with you the NGOs on our Platform working in Izmir. You can see these NGOs, along with their logos, below:
Of course, the number of NGOs is increasing daily. Therefore, by next week, more of the NGOs mentioned above will have joined our Platform. I’ll share them with you in an article I’ll write once the acute crisis in Izmir is over.
As the Platform, our sole purpose is to minimize the damage to our people during disasters in our country. To this end, we are doing everything we can in collaboration with the public. What we did during and after the Elazığ Earthquake is a guarantee of what we will do. As a reminder, I’d like to share the links to the blog posts I wrote about the Elazığ Earthquake:
https://www.serhansuzer.com/tr/elazigda-bizim-stklar-tarih-yaziyor
https://www.serhansuzer.com/tr/deprem-degil-bina-oldurur
In the meantime, you can donate to TİDER, which I founded, to support Izmir through our platform: https://www.tider.org/
You can also send your donations to Izmir through our sister NGO, Needs Map, which maps needs. https://www.ihtiyacharitasi.org/
See you in my next detailed article about the Izmir earthquake. Stay well.
Tag: lifestyle
