At TPF, we believe that all creatures deserve to live in dignity, in health, and surrounded by the care and love they deserve — including stray animals. Our solution has been to partner with Dört Ayaklı Şehir, supporting the well-being of stray animals by facilitating neutering, increasing shelter capacities, and improving the adoption process. Thanks to your generous support for TPF’s Street Animals campaign, incredible changes have been made for these animals, most importantly helping them find loving homes and families.

Meet Karamel, who was abandoned when he was only two weeks old. Without proper care, he was malnourished and had difficulty breathing. Your support enabled us to provide immediate treatment, which continued for three months until he was healthy. The first challenge was complete — healing Karamel — but the second one proved even harder. For six months, he waited for a family to adopt him, until a dog-loving family with a five-year-old German Shepherd met him and took him home. Today, Karamel spends his days spoiled with love and treats, happily playing and napping.

Karamel is lucky compared to Sezen, a three-month-old puppy saved from the rubble after the earthquake in Antakya. She was the only survivor from her apartment, including her family. With a fractured bone and damaged organs, Sezen was in intensive care for four months, yet she did not give up and regained her health thanks to your generosity. It took 900 days for a family to adopt Sezen, but the wait was worth it. Today, she is with her forever family all the way in Berlin chasing pigeons with joy. 

Nar, Coco, Nana, Mec, and many more — once stray dogs and cats — now have the chance to start fresh, leaving insecurities and harsh living conditions behind. You gave them a second chance at life, which they are fulfilling to the fullest, safely in their new homes, surrounded by love with their newfound forever families, 

Yet our work is far from over. Every day, thousands of stray dogs and cats still struggle to survive on the streets. With your support, we can expand our reach—offering safety, healing, and compassion. Together, we can give every animal the chance to live the life they deserve.

Thanks to your contributions we are able to make great impacts in the lives of many across Turkey. Please join Turkish Philanthropy Funds once again to support the wonderful work our partners are doing on the ground.

Thank You for Your Continued Support to TPF & TPF Partners!

SUPPORT YGA

SUPPORT KODA

SUPPORT MAYA

SUPPORT CEMRE FUND

SUPPORT ILKYAR

DONATE NOW

What is Trauma-Free World for Children Project?

The Trauma-Free World for Children Project provides a healing and protective center for children who have suffered from psychological trauma due to natural disasters, migration, the pandemic, family loss, and bullying.

Maya Vakfı (Foundation) established the Child and Youth Center in the Balat district of İstanbul to help vulnerable children with traumatized experiences. The project aims to support children in coping with traumatic stress and to heal through creative art therapy methods. This healing center also serves as a child protection center for at-risk children and their caregivers to help them access basic services and learn their rights. The main goal of the project is to improve the psychosocial wellbeing and resilience of children by focusing on groups under protection threats and to create a “Trauma-Free World for Children”

HOW DOES IT WORK?

Maya Vakfı as an NGO is a pioneer in the mental health field in Turkey with its unique approach to MHPSS. Maya Vakfı is the first in the world to combine the Skills for Psychological Recovery (SPR) model, a trauma-sensitive approach, for vulnerable children in combination with innovative art therapy methodologies, including the use of photography, drawing, music, and dance as therapeutic mediums.

HEALING

Sadly, children witness and experience traumatized events including violence, abuse, war, multiple displacements, migration, loss of family, inadequate parenting, extreme poverty, social discrimination, and last but not least the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. The most prevalent childhood mental health conditions are depression, prolonged grief disorder, post-traumatic stress, and anxiety disorders. No child should feel this way. To remedy this, we want to improve the psychosocial wellbeing and resilience of children through arts-based MHPSS (Mental Health and Psychosocial Support) interventions.

With the project, we provide access to quality art-based mental health care during individual and group sessions. The content of each session is adapted to the needs of the group following a clinical assessment. As children’s wellbeing is closely linked with their caretakers, we also offer positive parenting sessions for caregivers, with individual counseling available to help them offer better parenting to their own children. In addition to art therapy, we also use ecotherapy in our work at the center. Nature has been proven to heal and a large urban center like Istanbul has little green public space. Giving the children access to the garden at the center is often the only natural environment they have. The use of nature and the environment as a therapeutic intervention medium promotes the mental and physical wellbeing of children through outdoor activities in a green environment.

PROTECTION

Children also face a myriad of other protection issues such as obstacles to accessing basic services i.e., education, food security, and healthcare primarily caused by not having proper status registration documents, or more serious protection threats such as being forced into labor and early marriage. This project offers protection services to vulnerable children and their caregivers to help them access basic services and rights.

Project implementation:

1. We reach children and their families in and around the region where the center is located.
2. After the children are registered at the Centre, we include them in art therapy-based group sessions. During the pandemic, we conduct sessions both at the center and remotely.
3. If our psychologists identify children with special needs, we conduct one-on-one sessions
with them.
4. The number of sessions can be determined according to the needs of the children. Children who complete the sessions can continue to come to the center and spend time there, doing homework and playing games.
5. We refer the applications received through our Remote Psychological Counseling Service to the center. If the beneficiary is not able to come to the center, we start the remote counseling process.
6. Through our ongoing protocol with the Ministry of National Education (MoNE), we also work within the public schools and we refer children who are in need of psychosocial support to Balat Child and Youth Center.

*Due to the pandemic, Maya Vakfı utilizes online platforms and provides remote counseling and online sessions.

Impact of Trauma-Free World for Children Project

All children and youth have the right to happy and healthy lives and deserve access to effective care to prevent or treat any mental health problems that they may develop.

Mental health — an essential part of children’s overall health — has a complex interactive relationship with their physical health and their ability to succeed in school, their communities, and in society. Both physical and mental health affects how we think, feel and act on the inside and outside.

Developing social-emotional skills such as flexibility in thinking, social problem-solving skills, solidarity, and dedication, and self-control brings an advantage to the children for possible challenging life events. Even if the level of anxiety increases, it remains at a more controllable level and makes it easier to cope with challenges and find innovative solutions.

At Balat Child and Youth Center, we help children to develop the social and emotional skills that will enable them to cope with similar challenges in the future at the individual, school, and community levels. Through the sessions we carry out at the center, children learn to cope with negative emotions and difficulties, develop positive attitudes and behaviors, produce effective solutions to the problems they face in everyday life, self-expression, and build healthy relationships.

Main impacts:
1. Reducing symptoms associated with mental and psychosocial distress in children
2. Increasing children’s skills for psychological recovery
3. Increasing the knowledge of families about psychological trauma and enabling them to gain positive parenting skills
4. Ensuring children’s access to basic rights such as education and health

From a child’s perspective:

“Before I came to the center in Balat, I was having nightmares. Because I saw monster faces, I used to be afraid of the dark. I’m not afraid of monsters and have beautiful dreams since I hung my shield and dreamcatcher, which I made in the workshops here, on my wall. I believe they are protecting me.”

Ayşe, 8 years old.

Bring the center to life! Create a Trauma-Free World for Children!

By the end of 2022, we are aiming to reach out to 55 children.

$360 covers one child’s support.

Donations for each child will be used for:

– Implementation: 86%

– Human Resources 8%

– Administrative Costs 6%

SUPPORT MAYA'S TRAUMA-FREE WORLD FOR CHILDREN PROJECT

Eliminating poverty in Turkey requires solutions through innovation, cooperation, and policy change. It requires all of us to work hand in hand.

We have seen the poverty rate go down in Turkey. It has more than halved between 2002 and 2015, and extreme poverty fell even faster. However, during the pandemic poverty rates have increased by as much as 2.1% to 12.2% in 2020 – equivalent to 1.6 million newly poor. Poverty entails more than the lack of income and productive resources to ensure basic human needs such as food, shelter, clean drinking water, and sanitation. Its manifestations include hunger and malnutrition, limited access to education and other basic services, social discrimination, and exclusion. TPF works with partners on the ground to deal with this multi-layered prevalent problem.

TPF’S ACTION

While progress in eradicating extreme poverty has been incremental and widespread, the persistence of poverty, including extreme poverty remains a major concern in Turkey. TPF joins the Cemre Fund to address extreme poverty and provide cash transfers and in-kind support to increase access to services such as education, health, and nutrition for all.

The Cemre Fund finds and funds organizations such as Temel Ihtiyac Dernegi (TIDER, Basic Needs Association) and provides capacity-building support to these organizations. Their impact in the last year includes:

• increasing the number of people benefiting from DYA’s network by 50 percent (from2,000 to 3,000 people monthly) by matching them with new donors, and
• supporting TIDER’s eight food banks in various cities and increasing the number of beneficiaries by 20 percent (+13,500 additional people).

We want to reach out to more people. 

To that end, we are partnering with Cemre Fund to identify more families in remote places and increase food donations. The goal is to support at least 300 more families by the end of 2021 with food and other basic needs through the Mobile Food Bank in the following neighborhoods of Istanbul: Ataşehir, Çekmeköy, Ümraniye, Sancaktepe, Pendik, Şişli, Beyoğlu, Fatih, and Esenyurt.

Each $85 donation will provide food and the basic needs of a family for 10 months. 

Any support will have a tremendous impact on our fight against extreme poverty in Turkey and will help us to establish a sustainable ecosystem.

JOIN US to help deliver the urgent needs of these families during these most challenging times!

SUPPORT CEMRE FUND

Once again you enabled TPF to make a difference in the lives of many young people. We want to thank you for that and share the impact we’ve made together in closing the digital divide in Turkey.

Since the pandemic led to the sudden closure of schools, many of our partners on the ground in Turkey have made heroic efforts to provide students with continued learning opportunities and connections with their teachers and classmates. This dramatic increase in online learning has spotlighted the longstanding equity issue of the digital divide. Many students’ homes do not have the computing devices and internet access required for them to benefit from the online opportunities their schools have scrambled to provide.

An estimated 60 percent of the students in Turkey lack access to a computer at home. Our partners report that many additional students are limited in their use of online learning because they share a single device, slow and unreliable internet access, or restricted data plans with other family members. Students in economically disadvantaged homes, from traditionally underserved groups, and from rural communities are much more likely to be left offline.

To address this dire need we connected stakeholders and mobilized the community to a prompt and effective response.

With the support of nine partner organizations, TPF prioritized underprivileged students’ access to online education through providing computers, tablets, internet connection, and online classes. Together we raised close to $210K and were able to support approximately 4,500 children in continuing their education.

Addressing digital equity calls for a concerted effort of all of us. We want to thank all of our donors and partner organizations one more time for supporting our efforts in closing the digital gap and bringing accessible education to more students throughout Turkey. Thank you Needs Map, Cagdas Yasami Destekleme Dernegi, Toplum Gonulleri Vakfi, Okul Destek Derneği, Turk Egitim Vakfi, Tohum Autism, PAYDA, ILKYAR, and Hayata Destek Dernegi for your leadership and dedication.

Please read TPF’s Digital Divide Impact Report to learn more about how our grants created an impact for many.

We are humbled by the trust you have placed in us and for your relentless support, thank you once again.

TPF's Digital Divide Impact Report

Join TPF in Closing the Digital Divide

As the global coronavirus outbreak continues to impact the world, Turkey like many countries has to adapt to remote learning to avoid depriving children of quality education. Yet, 60% of the students in Turkey with disadvantaged backgrounds have no access to a computer at home. Our partners, Needs Map (Ihtiyac Haritasi) and the Community Volunteers Foundation (TOG)’s recent study revealed that there are 5,800 college students in immediate need of computers, in their network alone. The total number of students in need of computers throughout the country is in millions. These students are at the risk of falling behind in their formal education due to lacking the technology needed to continue their studies. In response to this urgent need, Turkish Philanthropy Funds partnered with Needs Map (Ihtiyac Haritasi) and the Community Volunteers Foundation (TOG) to give computers to college students. Our initial goal is 1,000 computers. Through our efforts, we received a discounted price of $350 per computer. We are working to bring down this price even further to have access to more computers and help more students with their education during the pandemic. THIS IS THE ONLY WAY TO MINIMIZE THE IMPACT OF THE AMPLIFIED INEQUALITY IN ACCESS TO ONLINE EDUCATION. We are hopeful that by the time school-based instruction is resumed, we will be able to close that digital gap for many students. Together we can reach more children and make a lasting impact on the education of students in Turkey. Thank you for your continued support! Team TPF

Thank you to everyone who has participated so far, and our incredible hosts! We are truly grateful.

Voices of Partners with Basic Needs Association

Voices of Partners with Prof. Umran İnan from Koç University

Voices of Partners with TOHUM

Voices of Partners with İhtiyaç Haritası

Voices of Partners with Maya Vakfı

Voices of Partners with YGA

Voices of Partners with KODA

Voices of Partners with Cemre Fund

Voices of Partners with AÇEV

Voices of Partners with Ashoka

Voices of Partners with ÖRAV

Voices of Partners with Değişim Liderleri Derneği

Voices of Partners with Okul Destek Derneği

Voices of Partners with Hayata Destek Derneği

Voices of Partners with Kodluyoruz

Voices of Partners with Darüşşafaka Society

Voices of Partners with PAYDA

Voices of Partners with TEV

Voices of Partners with TUSEV

Voices of Partners with CYDD & NeedsMap

Voices of Partners Special – Responding to Earthquakes with a Child-Centered Approach

Voices of Partners Special – Addressing Immediate Needs in Earthquake Response

Watch “Why I Give“ A Voices of Partners Donor Special

Watch Sena Eken Schieber Economics Award Special on Voices of Partners 2022-23

Watch Voices of Partners Women's History Month Special

Watch Voices of Partners Environment Special

Watch Sena Eken Schieber Economics Award Special on Voices of Partners 2021-22

We see our role as filling the gaps between emergency relief and long-term development programs that can revive earthquake hit areas both socially and economically, and give new opportunities to the survivors and the Elazig and neighboring communities, in general. Our selection criteria have been implementation capability, efficiency, financial strength, and transparency. Today, we are proud to announce that Anne Çocuk Egitim Vakfı (ACEV), Hayata Destek Dernegi (HDD), Kadin Merkezi Vakfi (KAMER), and Toplum Gönüllüleri Vakfı (TOG) have been selected as the second round of grant recipients from the Elazig Earthquake Relief Fund:

• Psychosocial Support to Children and Their Parents Who Live in Remote Areas and Villages by Anne Cocuk Egitim Vakfı (ACEV): ACEV receives $8,935 to provide comprehensive psychosocial support in the form of play activities as well as training and counseling for adults in a designated separate unit by touring all the remote villages and temporary residences in the earthquake area. The team of child psychologists, special-needs teachers, and social workers will conduct workshops for children and adults with the aim of serving 17,750 children and 4,170 adults.
• Aiding Women and Girls Affected by the Earthquake in Malatya by Hayata Destek Dernegi (HDD): HDD receives $12,750 from TPF to respond primarily to the needs of women and girls that have been affected by the earthquake. HDD will distribute hygiene and dignity kits to girls and women and will inform them about gender-based violence and reproductive health. By providing these kits, the project also aims to minimize the frequency of (women’s &girls’) visits to the temporary outdoor (prefabric) bathrooms to prevent sexual harassment and abuse.
• Bringing Laundry Services to the Earthquake Victims that Live in Tents and Rural Areas by Kadin Merkezi Vakfi (KAMER): KAMER receives $10,235 to respond to the hygienic needs in earthquake-hit areas. With this project, KAMER will launch laundry services for earthquake victims who live in tents. The organization also aims to provide immediate hygienic or nutrition aid to those using the laundry services, if there is any need. This opportunity will also be used to discuss violence and/or any situation that harms women and children. KAMER team will take necessary actions in case of any abuse.
• Granting Scholarships for Students to Help Them Maintain Their Education by Toplum Gonulluleri Vakfi (TOG): TOG receives $12,255 to encourage students whose academic lives have been impacted by the earthquake to continue their education. With the project, TOG will be giving scholarships to students with disadvantaged backgrounds in the earthquake area. The decisions will be made based on particular criteria such as needs, academic achievements, and volunteering. The grant will support 10 students for two years.

Disaster response and relief is not an easy task. It is a tireless job and requires compassion, commitment, and non-stop assistance. We want to one more time thank all of our partners on the ground who had and still have been working to provide relief. And, last but not least to you, our committed donors, for your confidence in our work and unwavering support. We are humbled by the trust you have placed in us.

Sincerely

Team TPF

Read about the 1st round of grant recipients here.

Cagdas Yasami Destekleme Dernegi (CYDD) sure does not think so. They understand that knowing how to code in today’s tech-driven world is invaluable. “Coding is a fundamental skill to have these days along with math and reading. Only the kids who go to private schools have the opportunity to learn to code because it is rarely taught in public schools. At Cagdas Yasami Destekleme Dernegi (CYDD), we wanted to offer this opportunity to children who are underprivileged” says Sevgi Duru Orhon, the Lead Project Manager.Cagdas Yasami Destekleme Dernegi (CYDD) aims to create a fun and engaging environment where children not only learn to code but also strengthen their digital literacy skills by designing games and websites. It is a wonderful way to prepare these young girls and boys for a future with more career options.

Knowing that coding is anticipated to become not an ivory-tower skill but an everyday one, Cagdas Yasami Destekleme Dernegi (CYDD) offers coding classes to public school students- Grades 5th – 7th- with limited financial means. The program started in 2016 at the ÇYDD İzmir, Çeşme and Soma and will be offered in other branches. “Our aim is to offer coding courses throughout Turkey to prepare as many children as we can for our rapidly changing world,” notes Ms. Orhon. There are additional benefits to coding instruction other than preparing students for careers. Coding contains the seeds for everything from problem-solving to ethical responsibility as well as mathematics and language. Accordingly, the project is designed to cover three courses. The first two courses teach the logic of algorithms and computer coding in a fun and creative way. The third course covers basic mobile applications and robotics and prepares to participate children for various competitions.

The project is run by volunteer students, who themselves receive a scholarship through CYDD, majoring in Computer Science and Informational Technology. One of the volunteers, Kerem, while sharing the joy of being a part of the program noted, “too often, we’re just passive consumers of technology. But coding puts students in the driver’s seat and gives them the responsibility to think differently about the technology they use in their everyday lives.” Another volunteer, Ayse highlighted how learning coding helped her build her self-confidence. She further noted, “the reward a student feels when creating something on his or her own is almost unmatched. And, I am so happy to be able to provide that to unprivileged students just like me.”

Kids have their own approach to these classes. Students do not see coding as something they have to learn but as something, they want to learn. “I love all my teachers. We learned a lot about coding. We create our own games and at the end of the class, we present what we have created for our parents which is very rewarding,” says Rabia a student, participating in the program. Another student, Busra, shared with enthusiasm why she loves the classes, “I love showing people how to play my games and help teach other people how to make games too.” They just think it’s lots of fun to design video games, create websites, and make robots move. “They don’ realize the value these classes add to them now but will in the future,” a teacher says. “Learning coding at a young age makes kids better thinkers and communicators. They learn to tell a story in exact order. Because many children use video games to learn to code, they know how to follow or even create their storyline or code sequence.” says Ms. Orhon. She further notes that parents are satisfied knowing that their child is not limited in knowledge. Besides only using smartphones and tablets, there is more to strive for, and coding is a great skill to have in this technology-oriented world.

So? What do you think? Is it too early to teach kids to code? If you agree with Cagdas Yasami Destekleme Dernegi (CYDD), support their project!

That’s what Ibrahim Betil, founding CEO and President of Sen-De-Gel Dernegi, believes. And that focus on creating equal opportunity for all, be it in income, education, or access to clean water, is what’s propelled him forward for the past fifteen years.

After working in the banking industry for many years and trying his hand in politics, Betil decided that the only way to make an impactful and long-term change in society is through philanthropy. With this determination, he founded the Volunteers in Education Foundation (TEGV) and had also been actively involved with the establishment of Community Volunteers Foundation (TOG) and many other NGOs in Turkey. Seeing how effective use of resources can create a lasting impact for future generations, Betil turned to other countries when he met two Gambians who came to visit TOG in the hopes of future collaboration. Traveling to The Gambia made him realize he “had two choices – doing nothing and going back to Turkey or doing something.” He chose the latter and established Sen De Gel Dernegi in 2012 in Istanbul.

Sen de Gel fights poverty in the least developed countries. Since inception, they helped 360,000 people in Gambia and Senegal get access to clean water, started an animal husbandry project, built solar panels and provided rice mills and water wells. These long-term projects are designed to create and maintain a sustainable society where the basic needs are fulfilled.

With a recent donation from a US donor through TPF, the organization built two wells in two different villages serving 950 people.  During the opening ceremony “villagers were ecstatic,” Betil notes.  One of the villages’ chief expressed thanks on behalf of all villagers, “We need two things to have a happy and healthy livelihood- first is air, we need it to breathe. Second, water, we need it for our bodies to be nourished and sanitation.  And you gave it to us, we are forever thankful. ” Betil shared his interaction with one of the women who had twins, “a woman who had two babies in her hand approached me and said, ‘Today is the happiest day of my life. Now, I will be able to see my twins grow up thanks to this well you have built in my village. Before I walked a long distance to reach water. Now, my twins are yours.” In the other village, another woman approached him and said, “I almost walked close to 10km to get to the water with two small buckets in my hand, now all I need is to come to this well. Thank you, we owe you our livelihood.”

Donors increasingly see themselves as part of the local community, part of a national landscape, and part of a global landscape. They care about what’s going on down the street, across the country, and around the world. They want their community foundation to respond to the entirety of their philanthropic interests, not just one slice. At Turkish Philanthropy Funds, we are happy to be helping donors make a difference locally and globally. As our community grows, our reach grows as well.  We are delighted that we get a chance to tackle more challenges and reach more… with the support of our community…

We’re a place where the entirety of the community can meet. You can meet to help people and to receive help. We’re all givers and we’re all recipients of the work we do.

Support Sen De Gel Dernegi in fighting poverty!