With Winter fast approaching and temperatures dipping more and more, poverty-stricken families are struggling to cope with the cold season. For these suffering individuals, they are unable to afford all the basic items they need just to survive. Our team and partners on the ground in the Middle East have been meeting these families and listening to their stories, so that we are able to give the best help they critically need.
Last year in Kahramanmaras, Turkey, we met Syrian refugees Ahmet and his family during our team’s Winter Emergency Appeal distributions.
Ahmet’s family has been living in Turkey since 2013, after fleeing their home in Idlib, Syria 8 years ago. Although they’ve been living there for close to a decade, Ahmet is still unable to find a job because his citizenship application has not yet been accepted. Ahmet has been left to care for his 10 children – 5 daughters and 5 sons – on just 200 to 700 lira per month (USD53).
That amount is barely enough for him to pay basic necessities of the household and electricity. His youngest child is just three years old.
Last year in 2021, your donations have helped ensure Ahmet’s family received cooked meals, a food aid pack, winter clothing and blankets for the brutal winter, so that the family can focus what little money they have on electricity, which will help keep their heater running through cold nights.
Thank you for helping a father care for his children.
This winter, Ahmet is once more working himself to the bone to provide for his family.
Like other refugees living in the winter season, Ahmet and family are preparing for yet another cold season, one that is predicted to be worse than the year before. His family are already living hand-to-mouth, dependent on wages and Zakat from their neighbours.
Our Prophet S.A.W. said, ’The example of the believers in their affection, mercy and compassion for each other is that of a body. When one limb aches, the whole body reacts with sleeplessness and fever’. [Bukhari]
Today, you can help to share warmth with thousands of people facing some of the harshest conditions we’ll see all year by helping us deliver items through our Winter Emergency Appeal campaign. Together, we will be able to provide blankets, mattresses, winter clothes and boots, stoves and other heating devices to those who desperately need them.
