Jihan and Kirjan are sisters-in-law who live in two small houses, which share a front yard and a front gate, with 11 children: five of Jihan’s six sons, aged 7 to 18, two of her three daughters, aged 22 and 27, her granddaughter who is 11 months old, and Kirjan’s two daughters, 15 and 4, as well as her son, 10.
They pay a combined rent of 350TL (57 USD) each month.
Turkey is the largest refugee hosting country in the world, with over 3.5 million Syrian refugees registered in the country. Over 90 per cent of the refugee population lives in urban and peri-urban centres and not in camps.
Jihan Alam, 57 (left), and Kirjan Ali, 37 (right), from Aleppo, living in Islahiye (Photos and story credit: Rory O'Keeffe/CARE)
Jihan: ‘I came to Turkey in 2015, here to Islahiye. The first place I lived in was in very bad condition. It was dirty, and insecure. Everything was broken. I had no money to mend anything, and I was exhausted. But I worked, for six months, to earn a salary so we could move here. I did agricultural work, growing and preparing peppers.
‘When we arrived to this house, the conditions were very bad. There were no locks on the doors, the glass in all the windows was broken. This made us feel very vulnerable.’
Kirjan: ‘We were also feeling vulnerable because there was no lock on the main door onto the road, which leads to here through the garden outside, and the walls were very low.
‘So we faced many problems. But CARE came here and built the wall higher. They put locks on our doors.’
Jihan: ‘CARE repaired our kitchen door – put in a new one. It put glass in our windows. Now, we feel safer.’
As winter approaches, CARE’s shelter assessment showed that 70 per cent of Syrian refugees living in Southern Turkey were in ‘inadequate’ shelter. CARE’s shelter program works to support individuals and families to upgrade their residents, improve people’s living standards, and ensure families feel safe and secure.
During the cold winter months, temperatures can hover around freezing in Islahiye, and even colder in other parts of Turkey. Without adequate shelter, families face harsh conditions. CARE’s shelter program aims to protect Syrian households throughout the winter; along with the increased financial strain as maintaining adequate living conditions entails a sharp increase in expenditure related to heating, insulation, overall shelter maintenance, health and winter clothes.
Jihan: ‘It’s much better now, thanks to CARE’s help. It’s much safer, and in the winter it’s better because there is not so much mud and dirt. We can keep everything cleaner and better for the children. We really are very pleased with CARE’s work here, for its help.
‘We want to stay here in a safe place. We have been through many things. Things no-one should have to go through. We have to get on with our lives and work for our children’s futures, but for this, we need a safe place, like this.
Following a needs assessment carried out by CARE for Jihan Alam and Kirjan Ali’s homes by the Basic Needs team, CARE commissioned construction workers who:
- increased the height of the wall that surround the homes and their shared yard;
- installed locks on the door from the street;
- replaced the dirt track which led from this gate to the houses with a stone path. In winter, the dirt track became waterlogged and almost impassable, and led to mud covering clothing and being carried into the two houses;
- put a roof on the houses’ shared outdoor storage space;
- hung a door for the WC shared between the two houses;
- installed a hand-washing sink outside the WC;
- hung a door for the houses’ shared kitchen;
- connected the kitchen sink to the water mains because previously water from the sink would empty into the front yard;
- installed mixer taps in the houses’ shared kitchen and bathroom.
CARE Turkey is responding to the Syria crisis by addressing threats to protection, and improving safety, dignity and privacy, and for vulnerable refugees and host community members by intervening to rehabilitate shelter, upgrading buildings, and communal community spaces.
We are working with construction consultants to improve, repair, and/or install doors, windows, ceilings and roofs, walls, connections to electricity, electrical circuits, lighting, sanitation facilities, kitchens, and hygiene facilities.
Through CARE’s shelter program, we have been able to support nearly 23,000 individuals in Islahiye, a district of Gaziantep, through household upgrades, communal building upgrades, and community structures. There are over 400,000 registered Syrian refugees in the province of Gaziantep, which has an overall population of just under 2.5 million residents.
See more of our work in Turkey.