MUHAMMADIYAH.OR.ID, TURKEY – Volunteers of the Muhammadiyah-Aisyiyah Special Branch (PCIM/A) of Turkey have become interpreters of the Indonesian Emergency Medical Team (INA-EMT) since Thursday (16/2) in emergency field hospitals in Hatay. Besides assisting the INA EMT members, the volunteers conducted a program for children surviving the Turkey earthquake as part of psychosocial support.
The program runs every day at 4 p.m. (local time). Three volunteers become persons in charge of each program session, and they are helped by experienced teachers.
They are Hidayah Hariani, Keisha Aura Fajria Putri, and Bayizah Angga. They become interpreters in the hospitals from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. (local time) and persons in charge of the psychosocial program from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. (local time).
In the beginning, 20 children participated in the psychosocial program, and it reached 60 children on 23 February 2023. Children’s different characters became challenges for the volunteers.
Nevertheless, the children’s spirit of learning motivated the volunteers to give their best. Indeed, the volunteers offered an English learning program for the children.
“The children said that they were happy with the program because they couldn’t go to school. They thanked us for it,” said one of the psychosocial team members.
The program may be a good start in the psychosocial recovery process for the children and a beginning of the internationalization of Muhammadiyah in Turkey.
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