Support Refugee Babies 2018-2019

Ala and Suad are originally from Sinjar, Iraq. They came to Turkey through Syria in 2015 with their two children. Suad was working in the construction sector, he could receive his pay on time, they had relatives nearby so they had a relatively stable living. Their third child, Mustafa, was born here in Mersin 18 months ago. And this is when things became complicated for the family.

As a piece of background info, you should know that in Turkey, while Iraqi refugees are registered under ‘international protection’ status, Syrian refugees are registered under ‘temporary protection status. Thus, being of Iraqi origin, Ala and Suad’s family was registered under ‘international protection’.

Ala explains that, when Mustafa was born and registered, she noticed that his protection ID looked different than theirs. And she thought ‘Oh, as he is born here, maybe he just became a Turkish citizen!’ and sensed a bittersweet joy that her son would perhaps have a safe future guaranteed no matter how events unfolded back home. This was not the case though…

Only later on, when Mustafa was already a few months old and got sick, that this mistake was noticed. A staff member at the hospital noticed that the child, despite being Iraqi, had a temporary protection ID. Local authorities were informed and as it happened, the family was fined for ‘forgery.’ On top of it, Mustafa lost his status and thus a there was a hospital fee to be paid! This is when they family contacted Support to Life. As soon as being notified, STL got in touch with all relevant parties – the registration office, the hospital, the bar association. Necessary documentation was issued to clarify the situation and once it became clear that this was simply an administrative error that took place at the population office, the hospital bill was cancelled, Mustafa’s status was corrected and the fine was cancelled.

We encounter this all too often, an official ‘status,’ simple as it may sound, is highlight deterministic in the lives of refugees and is open to all sorts of complications. This is why, our case management teams work in 9 different locations of Turkey, ready to respond to urgent matters, help refugees navigate formalities and bureaucratic complications.

Here at Support to Life, we operate with full financial and operational transparency. In this vein, we’ve recently completed our Annual Report covering all our activities throughout 2018(English version available on our website soon). Thus in this report, I will use the opportunity to provide all supporters with a recap of the range of activities we’ve implemented to support refugee babies in Turkey.

First off, we start with the baby care packs, which are an integral part of the project we raise funds for here. Throughout 2018, we’ve been able to provide baby care packs for a total of 204 mothers and their babies. That’s more than $14,000 worth of baby care items that have reached directly those who need them the most.

But this is just a “first step” assistance. Let us now forget that the Syrian War is in its 9^th year now and has caused a situation we refer to as “prolonged displacement.” Individuals and families that had to leave their homes due to war began new lives in Turkey and other surrounding countries. Children born back in those early years are now at schooling age. Thus, we care a great deal about facilitating their access to education services. In this context, throughout 2018, we’ve provided “school packs” to 560 children. Inside the backpacks we provided, they found stationary items such as pens, pencils and notebooks.

In addition, we helped 1239 children enroll to school. Simple as it may sound, enrollment processes are easily complicated for Syrians for either bureaucratic reasons or due to the family’s pressing need to maximize the labor potential of their families – resorting to “negative coping mechanisms” such as child labor.

Our support did not end there either, we provided tutoring support for children who have difficulty keeping up with their classes. Even after enrollment, Syrian youth often find it difficult to keep up with their peers due to social cohesion issues, language difficulties or war trauma. In this domain, we helped 789 children with their studies.

Meanwhile, we target parents as well; sensitizing them about the negative effects of child labor, importance of schooling, the hazards of early marriages.

With your support, we continue our activities in 2019. We seek to ensure that, in the prolonged displacement situation that the Syrian crisis is, no kid is left behind.