The DEC Turkey-Syria Earthquake Appeal raised £159 million, including £5 million matched by the UK Government.

Your donations have helped DEC charities reach over 2.2 million people in Turkey and Syria, providing emergency shelter, clean water, food, healthcare, cash to meet urgent needs and livelihood support to help rebuild their lives.

This appeal is now closed but donations to the appeal will continue to be spent up until the end of January 2025.

The cash support has at least helped us buy essentials LIKE food and medicine"

Derifa,* aged 65, lost two members of her family in the earthquake and has been struggling to survive alone in a tent in northwest Syria.

"I used to do everything with my children. We were working and making a decent living for ourselves. We lost everything," she says.

DEC charity Age International has been working with local partner Syria Relief to provide cash support to older people living in camps since the disaster. Cash support, funded by the DEC, helped Derifa survive in the aftermath of the disaster, but she still faces many challenges as conditions in the camp are difficult, and she misses her family.

“My life is very boring sometimes. Some of my children passed away during the earthquake, while others moved away. The loneliness is hard, but I can overcome my difficulties by visiting my neighbours and spending time with them.”

Thank you to those who donated as it means we can reach more people."

Zeynep, aged 31, is a mother of four children living in a container camp in Turkey’s Gaziantep province. Since the earthquakes she feels she has become short-tempered, and her eight-year-old son Hasan* has become withdrawn.

“I get easily annoyed at things. I want things to be in order in the house but I can’t. There are six of us living in the container,” she says.

Zeynep and her son are receiving psycho-social support at a health clinic supported by DEC charity International Rescue Committee. She tells psychologist Rumeysa that her parents-in-law died in the earthquakes and they had to pull them out from under the rubble. She also opens up about her own childhood and fears she might become aggressive like her father.

Rumeysa says these issues are all to common. “People suffer from anxiety, depression, trauma. There are anger management issues for children and sleep deprivation problems. I see four or five patients every day for 40-minute sessions. Thank you to those who donated to this project as it means we can reach more people.”

Zeynep is still at the start of her therapy sessions but she hopes they will help. “I want to be a good mother and help my children. I want to soften my sharp side and change for the better. Life will be better if I can apply what I’m learning in the talking therapy,” she says.

We managed to hold on to life again”

Mutaba, aged 33, was a fashion designer before the earthquake. She lost her home in the disaster and is now living in a shipping container with eight members of her extended family. 

“I worked in a fashion factory in Maraş but after the earthquake I had a fear of being inside and of going to the factory, so it was very difficult for me to go back to my work,” she says.

Fortunately, Mutaba heard about a women’s co-operative project run by Oxfam KEDV which provides training, counselling and an income for 100 women every week. Mutaba is one of the women now learning a range of skills at the centre, from embroidery to sewing, basket making to making knitted and wooden toys.

“This project helps me both financially and psychologically. I didn’t know anyone here before I came, but now they are my friends, my sisters. I've learnt a lot of new things here from the masterful teachers. Thanks to the instructors, we managed to hold on to life again. That's how we keep going.”