Help my family - recover from earthquake disaster

Hello, my name is Gizem and I'm from Antakya / Hatay / Turkey. I currently live in County Dublin / Ireland so I am doing my best to support my family back home. After the earthquake took place on 6th February 2023 in our city, our family home suffered from significant damage, forcing my family to leave the city for safety and other humanitarian needs such as water, heating and food after sleeping in the car for the first days of the earthquake.

The reason why I started this fundraiser is to help my family as much as I can to cope with living expenses, and hopefully enough to help them rebuild our home when it is safe to go back.

Although we are indescribably lucky and thankful that all members of our immediate family have survived this horrendous earthquake, the reality of survival hit us when we started to learn the scale of our losses. Members of our extended family, long-lasting friends and neighbours have been lost as well as the "Ancient Antioch" the city which hosted our lives, and memories for generations.

I'm a member of a family of six; myself, my mom, my dad and my triplets siblings. We managed to place my family in a small hotel in the west of Turkey, to the city called Mugla, temporarily.

My father, Enis has a few illnesses that make it harder for him to cope with these devastating circumstances. He suffers from diabetes, high blood pressure, heart problems that gave him two heart attacks in the past, slipped disc on his back and sleep apnea. A part of the funds that I'm hoping to raise will be used towards his medical expenses we foresee and also his regular checkups in a hospital.

My triplet siblings - two brothers and a sister; Gali, Garip and Gazel are 21 years old. They are in the process of their study application in Malta. A few weeks before the earthquake they applied for their visas to study abroad and now we are waiting for their answer. If they get accepted for their study visa, a part of the funds will be used to supply them with the necessary equipment to study such as clothes, shoes, and study materials and also to support the travel cost of getting them from Turkey to Malta.

Additionally, the officials have announced that they are aiming to rebuild the demolished cities in one year, and how much monetary help they will give to the families during this year. However, the amount they will substitute for the rental expenses is less than 1/3 of the average rent fees in the country. I would like to use this funding to help my family to afford living expenses such as rent, food and utilities until they can go back to their lives hopefully after one year.

This devastating earthquake changed everything for us, even our home city will be a strange place without the people we knew and the new structures. One thing we are sure of is how lucky we are as a family to survive the worst. We now can only heal our wounds and rebuild our lives one day at a time.