Helping Families in Türkiye
In Türkiye, ERDO is partnering with First Hope Association, a church-based organization who believes in helping every human being without discrimination. This article comes from the First Hope team responding to the earthquake in Türkiye.
It’s been 21 days since the earthquake. In spite of all our work and all of the support, in some affected areas it looks and feels like the earthquake just happened yesterday. The incredible size of the disaster continues to amaze us.
At the same time, significant aftershocks continue to create a sense of fear all around us. We’ve had over 9,000 of these quakes since it all began. The last official update on lost lives stands at 44,618. The number of collapsed and heavily damaged buildings is around 160,000. Tents, containers and other shelters have been put up for about 2 million people, but there are still serious needs around us.
The First Hope team continues to plow forward at a tiring pace.
We’ve opened a bread oven to get people working and making bread we can use. Many of the bakeries in the area have been shut down and so we are equipping some local workers who will be turning out 7,000 loaves of bread and 1,000 small pastries a day. We’ll be providing all the supplies and ingredients for the first month to get them up and running and will be helping with distribution.
Our tent camp project is still being prepared. We’ve acquired most of the tents, beds, and bedding. We are still continuing talks with local authorities about the exact location where we can set up. This week we’ll begin the work to set up 500 tents along with water and bathrooms to serve the Belen, Dortyol, and Samandag districts in Antakya. We’ve also started receiving the first of 500 temporary toilets for the tent camps.
We are also continuing our speedy delivery of personal supplies. In and around Antakya (including rural areas), we provide supplies to about 500 people a day at our distribution center. We also have teams distributing supplies to smaller villages/rural areas in Gaziantep’s Nurdagi and Islahiye districts and Kahramanmaras’ Elbistan and Tekir districts. We are working to start the same service in Adiyaman, Osmaniye and Adana.
Our mobile hygiene trucks have been operating in Antakya and Gaziantep since day one and are able to do up to 200 loads of laundry a day. Thousands of volunteers and locals have also been able to use the showers and bathrooms through this service as well.
We are grateful to everyone around the world who has prayed for and supported us. We want to make a difference in the lives of more and more people and see them being healed. This ministry is happening because of you and the Lord’s power, who allowed us to be on the field and helped us find strength to continue on.
Prayer Needs
We were able to purchase two trucks and one minivan but we are still in need of two more trucks and two more minivans. All of these vehicles will be in the affected region for at least 18 to 24 months to serve 11 different cities.We are expecting a hot dry summer. There is going to be a constantly growing need for bottled water, hygiene supplies, personal care items, female pads and diapers. Our procurement team works every day to increase our stocks, so please pray for us as we try to raise funds for our relief project.