Volunteers open ‘leisure garden’ for Syrian refugee children in İzmir

İZMİR - Doğan News Agency

DHA Photos

Volunteers in Turkey’s İzmir have opened the doors of their “leisure garden” to Syrian refugee children, in order to provide basic social needs for the traumatized children.

The Basmane district of İzmir, an Aegean province, is known as a “hot spot” or transition point for refugees seeking to cross into Europe through the Aegean Sea illegally, despite risk of death.

The “Solidarity with Refugees Group” has turned the garden of its “Solidarity House” into a kid-friendly garden, where children facing poverty in the city can escape the memories of war by playing games, planting seeds and growing vegetables and fruits. One project done in the garden had the children bury toy guns in the ground as a sort of therapy.

Volunteers from Turkey as well as France, Brazil, Japan, American and Palestine will teach children refugees in Turkish, English and their mother tongue. These volunteers have been working with refugees in different countries before they came to Turkey.

“The only problem is not nutrition, sheltering and health services for refugees. We should reintroduce these children to the society and do something for their future” said the group’s spokesperson, Yalçın Yanık.