Post-earthquake Psychosocial Support in Turkiye

TEGV has experience in taking an active role in post-disaster relief and response efforts. After the 1999 Marmara earthquake, TEGV initiated the Hope 2000 project, the first step of the mobile vehicle that we now call Fireflies, in order to carry out activities in the region. In this way, it found the opportunity to carry out activities in the earthquake zone with child-friendly designed buses. Following the 2003 Bingöl, 2011 Van, 2020 Erzincan, 2020 Izmir earthquakes, Firefly fleet was deployed in earthquake zones and contributed to the normalisation processes of children after trauma. With the tablet project launched during the pandemic, TEGV provided 4.000 children with tablets and enabled them to participate in the education programs on TEGV's distance education platform. 2020 Black Sea flood disaster and 2021 Aegean Region forest fires continued to implement the tablet project.

TEGV has taken quick decisions and actions in all the disasters our country has experienced with its organisational structure, operational capacity and 29 years of experience. From the first hours of the earthquake on February 6, 2023 TEGV opened the doors of 6 Fireflies and 2 stationary activity centers in the region to citizens and met their needs of shelter, heating, basic food and hygiene in safe areas. Afterwards, it directed all the vehicles in the Firefly fleet consisting of 17 vehicles to the region and started to carry out activities in tent and container cities, which are collective living spaces, to ensure that the education lives of children who are away from school are not interrupted. In order to ensure the continuity of its activities in the region and to carry out activities in a more widespread area, TEGV developed a new and fast model. TEGV transported its volunteers from many cities in Türkiye to the earthquake zone and ensured that its volunteers were relocated on a weekly basis. It supported volunteers and field staff with online trainings on psychological first aid, and published the "Guide to Communicating with Children Affected by the Earthquake" for the support of parents and teachers. TEGV rapidly expanded its area of operation in the earthquake zone with the support of its donors and accelerated its relief and recovery efforts by establishing 9 new Fireflies and 15 container city activity centers.

In this way, by raising the number of activity centers in the earthquake zone to 33, it increased its impact in the region by approximately 4 times in a short time and started to carry out widespread activities. TEGV has provided employment to all new activity centers from the local community, and has also supported women's employment in the region with female Firefly managers who started working at TEGV for the first time.

While the traumatic effects of the earthquake continued, TEGV tried to create a warm environment where children could feel safe again, express their feelings and thoughts more easily, and be together with their peers during the days they were away from school by implementing social-emotional based activities with "Post-Disaster Activities". The feedback received from children and volunteers during the activities shows that TEGV activity centers have become a light of hope for children during this period: "Before this blue Firefly and our volunteer sisters came to the container city I did not even want to talk, now I am happier", "Even though the activities have not started yet, children knock on the door of the Firefly at 8 in the morning and look forward to spending time with us."

As of the beginning of the 2023-2024 academic year, TEGV continued to support the social, emotional, cognitive and academic development of children through its high-quality educational activities. With the Back to School project, TEGV helped fill the knowledge gap during the period when educational activities in schools were interrupted. Throughout 2023, TEGV reached more than 25.000 children in the earthquake zone with the support of more than 1.200 volunteers. TEGV plans to continue its activities in the region for a long time and aims to continue these activities with the support of valuable donors.

From the first day of the earthquake, 17 Fireflies, which we call mobile education trucks, were operating in the earthquake zone. After the earthquake, we had new Fireflies with the support of our donors, and a total of 24 mobile education trucks provide educational activities for children.
With the container and new permanent activity centers established after the earthquake, we now have a total of 72 different activity centers. We operate in 27 different provinces across Turkey.
All these activities are carried out with the valuable support of our donors and volunteers.

With the support of our donors, we enable more children to access quality education.

We are grateful for your support, thank you

Links:

• Post-Earthquake Efforts