By Fatih Kyman | Communication Expert
Selma, mother of two, would like to tell her story… And how the birth of her second son Valid could easilyhave been complicated if circumstanced hadn’t changed.
...
I and my husband Yakup Arrived in Turkey 7 years ago, from the small town of Darbasiya, that’s right across Mardin’s Kzltepe. A few years earlier, before all the violence, my husband’s parents had migrated there. When the war started nearing our doorstep, we had no choice but to hit the road. Our lives were okay before the war. I was going to school, we had our own piece of land. Who wants to leave their land and go somewhere entirely alien?
We are here now but my family is still there, I can’t visit because the border is closed. I wonder if I will ever see them again… Sometimes we get to speak on the phone. They tell me 2 hours a day is all the electricity they get, they tell me it gets very cold. They tell me even bread is expensive…
Doesn’t sound like much to miss but here it is an entirely different set of problems. Receiving my official temporary protection status was a huge challenge for me. I hadn’t worked by the time I was about to give birth to my second child. We went to a private hospital and two, but the sums they charged was much more than what we could afford. Then, just by sheer luck, I read about Support to Life somewhere, I read that they were doing work on maternal health. My neighbours suggested that I visit Support to Life and explain my situation, they told me maybe they could help.
I spoke to them and explained my situation. They immediately initiated the process for our family to obtain their IDs. I had already missed half my periodic pregnancy check-ups and they didn’t want to waste any more time. They quickly made it work and I could receive medical attention.
It is not just that too… There is also the bureaucratic side of it. Population registry and those… I could register my son Valid as a member of our family thanks to these IDs. How else could we be a proper family? These things matter, especially after what we’ve been through... when we have so little to feel secure about. Now my biggest ideal is to make sure both my kids receive a sound education.
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