by Neena Sachdeva in Ankara
Two years after the August earthquake
which killed more than 17,000 people in Izmit, the long-term legacy of
the devastating disaster is painfully obvious. To help people deal with
the trauma, the Turkish Red Crescent Society and the International Federation
have established a psycho-social support programme to help survivors recover
from the two earthquakes of 1999.
The programme is based on the understanding that the healing process is a long one and that communities can best define activities to respond to their needs. To facilitate this process, volunteers are trained in various aspects of psychological support and activities are organised through collective decision-making, taking into account requests from those who seek counselling.
Ayla Comlek, 44, a retired clerk who used to work in the city's tax department, teaches painting to children at the Hare Psycho-Social Centre in Izmit. Hare means "ripple" in Turkish. The need for children's classes was great: parents complained about behavioural problems since the earthquake including aggression, bullying, attention deficiency, as well as bed-wetting and depression. Last month, the painting class made kites and flew them outside one of the several neighbourhoods of prefabricated houses built for earthquake victims in Izmit, so that children living there could participate in the activity.
One of the 44 children in Ayla's weekly painting class is 10-year old Ahmet, who lost both parents in the August 1999 earthquake. Ahmet is a very introverted child who only seems to talk when he is painting. Ahmet attends the painting class with his cousin, 9-year-old Samet. Their fathers were brothers who owned a small but successful business in Izmit before the quake, which not only killed their loved ones and homes, but also took away their source of livelihood.
Samet's 15-year old sister Seda also comes to the Hare centre. Seda who was 13 at the time of the quake was traumatized by the numerous aftershocks.
"I felt like life was coming to an end. I was so afraid that my parents would also die and leave me alone," she says. Seda takes part in the weekly aerobic classes at the centre, as well as in the trekking and hiking activities offered once a month. This has proved useful in reducing her stress level and she feels much better by interacting with others at the centre, says her mother Finat Karali who still cries when she relates her family's experiences. All three children are doing very well at school, according to Ayla, which is unusual.
The aerobic class teacher and volunteer of the centre is Didem Altay, 27, an unemployed bank clerk who was laid off recently due to the current economic crisis in Turkey. Didem witnessed a building fall and crush several people after the quake and she fears concrete buildings so much that she refuses to move from the Yahya Kaptan prefabricated settlement where she lives with her parents to a permanent home.
"I like being at the centre because I can help people I felt so powerless to help during the earthquakes," she says.
Ahmet now lives with his cousins, Samet and Seda while his older brother Mehmet lives with his grandparents in a village outside Izmit. The earthquakes have changed families forever. The family had lived in a tent city for several months before a relative living in Greece offered them his home rent-free. The home is furnished by donations from relatives and friends, as are all the clothes and everything else they own.
"When a family movie comes on television, we still hold each other and cry over the loss of our relatives and friends but the pain and the fear are getting better," says Finat.