Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TİKA) continues its humanitarian aid activities in Gaza, Palestine, where Israeli attacks never cease.
As a result of the ongoing attacks in Gaza since October 7, 25 thousand Palestinians have lost their lives, 62 thousand people have been injured, 1.7 million Gazans have been displaced from their homes, and tens of thousands of houses have been destroyed.
Following the escalating attacks in the northern and central regions of Gaza and the urgent need to evacuate residents from these areas, the city of Rafah, home to more than a million people, has become the main shelter for displaced people.
Relief supplies are limited and insufficient
Due to restrictions, the activities of humanitarian aid organizations, as well as the delivery of aid materials such as food, water and medicine are severely limited and inadequate.
Food supplies were delivered by TİKA to families sheltering in tent camps in Rafah, Deir al-Balah and Az-Zawayda regions, where access to humanitarian aid is most challenging.
Due to supply shortages, packages consisting of various vegetables that could be obtained within Gaza were distributed to a thousand Gazan families.
Basic ready-to-eat food packages, along with medical supplies, mattresses, blankets and winter clothes, had been previously provided to Gazans.
Provided Clean Water to 300 Families in Afghanistan”
Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TİKA) renovated the inactive water well in the Aqcha district of Jowzjan province, Afghanistan, and met the clean water needs of 300 families in the region.
The renovated water well was put into service during a ceremony held with the participation of the Former Vice-Rector of Parwan University, Sayid Mubin Hashimi; TİKA’s Coordinator in Mazar-i-Sharif, Mikail Taşdemir and the local dignitaries.
The activities carried out within the scope of the project include installing a 24,000-liter water tank, renewing solar panels, repairing the waterworks system, renovating the water pump room and installing a reinforced concrete floor in the water tank.
300 families in the region now have access to healthy and clean water, thanks to the project.
A Herbarium and Biodiversity Protection Laboratory was established by the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TİKA) within the Climate Change Research Center at Mirpur University of Science and Technology in the Azad Jammu and Kashmir Region of Pakistan.
A Herbarium and Biodiversity Conservation laboratory was opened within the University in order to update, record and protect the wild vegetation inventory in the Azad Jammu and Kashmir region, with the goal of making the inventory accessible to students and researchers by transferring it to digital media and detect the effects of climate change and propagate wild plants.
Azad Jammu and Kashmir Health Minister, Nisar Ansar Abdali; Chancellor of Mirpur University of Science and Technology, Prof. Dr. Muhammad Younus Javed; Head of the Botany Department and students attended the opening ceremony.
Speaking at the ceremony, Minister Ansar stated that Türkiye and Pakistan have very deep relations and thanked TİKA for its support in developing these relations. Stating that the projects in the Azad Jammu and Kashmir Region constitute concrete examples for the development of the region, Ansar underlined that the herbarium and laboratory established by TİKA, which conducts projects in various fields, is the first modern laboratory established in this field in the Kashmir Region.
The Chancellor of Mirpur University of Science and Technology, Prof. Dr. Muhammad Younus Javed also stated that the University, established in 2008, is the most important state university in the Azad Jammu and Kashmir Region, and added that the university continues its activities at campuses in 3 different cities with more than 2000 students in 6 faculties and 37 departments. Thanking TİKA for the laboratory and herbarium established in the Botany Department of the University, the Chancellor stated that the University will also support awareness raising among the local people, and the laboratory will also provide the infrastructure for the botanical garden project.
The laboratory, which is established within the scope of the project implemented by TİKA, has been extremely important for the detection and protection of wild raw material resources. The laboratory, which will contribute to both herbarium studies and reducing the problems caused by climate change, will also add commercial value to plant production by supporting the detection of extinct plants and the propagation of medicinal herbs.
Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TİKA) has started a Tailoring Course Training program in collaboration with the Lao Women’s Union and provided equipment support to Lao Cotton State Enterprises.
A tailoring course was offered to 20 women throughout 3 months at the Lao Women’s Union Vocational Training Center with TİKA’s support. The 20 women who successfully completed the course, along with their internships, were supplied with a beginner’s kit, comprising a sewing machine, iron, and basic tailoring materials enabling them to produce in the field of clothing.
In another project that TİKA initiated in Laos, the Lao Cotton State Enterprises in the state capital Vientiane were provided with textile manufacturing equipment that is necessary for seasonal and continuous workers to carry out manufacturing processes. Cotton State Enterprises is the only place where souvenirs, clothes and accessories produced with country-specific patterns and materials and marketed under the ‘Lao Cotton’ label, which is mostly crafted by disadvantaged women.
The beginner’s kits were given to 20 women who completed the tailoring training in Vientiane during a ceremony. Orhan Işık, Türkiye’s Ambassador to Vientiane, spoke at the ceremony, expresing his belief that this project, which was put into practice with TİKA’s support, would greatly contribute to women’s empowerment in Laos, and that the importance of such support has fairly increased due to the economic hardships around the world. Işık concluded his words by saying women achieved great success in many areas, emphasizing the great importance of increasing women’s economic independence and security in social life.
Aly Vongnobountham, the Lao Women’s Union President, who holds a ministerial position in Laos, thanked TİKA and Türkiye for their support, and said that contributions were made in supporting women and family economy, that these projects were also supported by the Lao government, and that they made effort to make these projects-in-practice sustainable. Vongnobountham added to her words that she hoped the projects would greatly contribute to the relations between the people of Türkiye and Laos.
Participants who had successfully completed the vocational training courses expressed their feelings and thoughts through letters they wrote.
– A letter from Vang to TİKA
I am Daokham Vang Chongtouvangvangtu, I was born in Thahuea village, Longxan district, Xaisomboun province in 1984. I have seven siblings, and I am the youngest one.
In my childhood, I lived in a rural area with my family. My family dealt with gathering forest produce, agriculture and rice farming. If nature supports the rains seasonally, both low- and high-altitude rice farming yields greatly. However, when drought cripples the yield, and we cannot achieve a sufficient yield that year. For this reason, we used to gather food by searching for it in natural resources, finding the wild produce in the forest, digging out taro and cassava roots.
I attended primary school in Dom Hom village when I was 8 to 12 years old, and I wanted to attend high school when I was 13 to 16 years old, but the school was way too far from home. Harsh road conditions did not allow commuting by vehicle back then. The only way to reach the school was possible with a boat journey through the river, which took half a day. I wanted to continue my education despite these dire conditions, and that is why my family encouraged me to attend high school. Staying at my relatives’ place, I enrolled in Luangprabang High School. Upon completing my high school education, I went back to my hometown, Longxan district.
I got married after graduating from high school in 2001, and we had 10 children, 7 girls and 3 boys.
My marriage life was tough and lonely. I moved in with my husband’s family after marrying him, leaving my home behind. My husband’s family was poor, and 13 siblings lived together. I gave birth to my first child in 2003. And then to my second child in 2004. Life got harder. My husband was an unpaid volunteer teacher. Seven days after my second child was born, my husband received a state scholarship and was entitled to continue his education in Vientiane. And I had to look after my children and my husband’s family as a bride. Tough life it was, no money, not even for clothes for myself and my children, and there was no rice. I had to search for taro and cassava roots in the forest. And it was perishing cold back then, I had to find wood to get warm and sleep comfortably. Two years later, the day of days came, my husband completed his education, and became a teacher in my hometown, and so, we moved out of my husband’s family’s place. However, my husband was assigned as a teacher to an area far from the village. He decided to move into a teacherage away from the village. It was a heavy responsibility for me to take care of our family living under a single roof. Every year, we had a new baby.
In 2005, I joined the Lao Women’s Union in the village. My life finally started to normalize after joining the Women’s Union. I kept doing rice farming and husbandry. While doing so, I gave birth to my 6th child and twins. But now, everybody in my family is helping each other to raise our children, and they are growing up happily in the countryside.
I want to express my thanks to the Lao Women’s Union for providing the opportunity to participate in this training. I am happy to have participated in this training to acquire a profession. I am striving to learn needlecraft. I will try to obtain beneficial results by putting the information I received from the teachers and students participating the in the training into practice.
I sincerely thank Türkiye and TİKA for supporting the Vocational Training Program and providing our training materials, accommodation, transportation, food allowances, and all other opportunities in this training. I am proud to be one of the people participating in this training, thanks to TİKA’s support. I have found the chance to improve myself. I will have a profession with all the information and experience I have obtained, and I will generate income for myself and my family. I hope that you continue supporting Laotian women, especially those with disadvantages. I deeply want Laotian women to have their own professions, find jobs, lead better lives, and get out of poverty in time.
– A letter from Yer to TİKA
I am Yer, I was born in Phonesavang village, Vientiane distrcit on August 10, 2008. I belong to the Hmong ethnicity. I live in Houaphanh Phuxay village now. My mother is 45 years old, a farmer in Phuxay village. I have six siblings.
Since my childhood, my family’s main income has been based on agriculture, gardening, fishing and gathering forest produce. Finding food depended on the weather and the season. My family had to work under appropriate weather conditions to yield enough rice every year. If it rained in season, then we had enough rice throughout the year. If it didn’t rain in season, we would not harvest much rice and food would become scarce.
I finished middle school amidst these hard living conditions in Houaphanh. My father, the breadwinner of the household, passed away towards the end of 2018. I undertook the responsibility of taking care of my younger siblings when my older brother went far away to search for a job, and I worked so that I could go to school at the same time. Since the beginning of 2023, my 3 younger siblings and I have been trying to meet our daily needs. When my older brother went far away to get a job, I decided to drop out of school and get a job to buy food for my siblings and try to take care of them, since there was no one there to provide for the family. After a while, my brother found a job in Attapeu, took one of our siblings with him, and started staying at the workplace.
Now, my younger siblings and I live in Phuxay village, and lead our lives by farming, harvesting bamboo and vegetables and fishing. Some days we have a harvest and fill our stomachs, but other days we cannot get a harvest and go hungry. In previous years, we used to have 9 bags of rice from our harvest, but it would not last throughout the year.
I sometimes cave in, thinking about the difficulties in my life. Whenever I think about it, I try to inspire myself looking at my younger siblings’ faces and telling myself that I have to be strong for them, and I have to fight so that I can carry the heavy weight that I am responsible for. I have to fulfill my responsibility to take care of them, being there for them when they are sick and putting in the effort to find food every day.
But I am lucky to have found the chance to be part of a project that helps people living in hard conditions. The Lao Women’s Union provided me with the opportunity to receive training at the Training Center. This is a beautiful opportunity for me to train and improve myself. I hope that I will have a steady career and make money to look after my siblings by sewing clothes. In the meantime, I want to express my gratitude to TİKA for supporting me to participate in this training. I promise that I will use the knowledge I have learned to build my career and lead a better life.
Within the scope of the cooperation protocol between Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TİKA) and the University of Havana in the Republic of Cuba, Turkish Culture and Language courses were given at the university in 2023.
Forty students and Cubans from outside the university attended the courses on Turkish Culture and Language given at the University of Havana, Faculty of Arts and Letters, Department of Turkish History and Culture. The courses were conducted by Mehmet İlgürel, who is an associate professor at Istanbul University, Faculty of Letters.
A postgraduate course on “Turkish History and Culture” was also offered for the first time at the University of Havana. In addition to the postgraduate course titled “Studies on Türkiye from its Ancient Origins to the Modern Times”, lectures were presented under the main title of “Rumi (Mevlana) and Yunus Emre, the Major Actors of Mystical-Philosophical Thought and Türkiye, the Heir of a Cultural and Social Heritage”.
The remaining courses in the program were conducted by Cuban lecturers who had conducted studies on Türkiye.
Turkish Language Competitions
Within the scope of the program, Turkish Language Competitions were organized among students who attend Turkish Culture and Language classes. The winning students were rewarded by the Turkish Embassy in Havana.
On the occasion of the 18th of March Çanakkale Victory and Martyrs’ Day, a speech was delivered to Cuban students and lecturers, explaining various aspects of the victory.
“Turkish Culture Day” on May 19
On May 19, on the Commemoration of Atatürk, Youth and Sports Day, a Turkish Culture Day was organized with the participation of faculty members and students. At this event, Cuban researchers held a session where they presented their papers on Turkish Culture. Cuban students read Turkish poems. In addition, students who were successful in the aforementioned competition were rewarded, and May 19 was celebrated.
