Dr. Kerem Kınık, president of Türkiye’s prime charity Turkish Red Crescent (Kızılay), gave a presentation of the group’s 2022 actions at an annual news convention on Tuesday. At the charity’s places of work in Istanbul, Kınık instructed reporters that they reached out to 43.5 million folks because of the help of donors and pledged to achieve out extra subsequent yr.
The charity marked its 154th anniversary this yr and stays amongst Türkiye’s extra distinguished charity “exports” with its work internationally, from far corners of Türkiye to battle zones and refugee camps.
Kınık mentioned they helped greater than 32.5 million folks in Türkiye and almost 11 million folks in different international locations in a number of campaigns, from well being help to schooling in addition to blood donations, one thing the charity is extra well-known for in Türkiye. The charity additionally provided money support to the needy. The president mentioned they used funds amounting to TL 11.5 billion ($610,000) and the help of some 254,000 folks, together with 239,128 volunteers.
He mentioned they had been the one affiliation on this planet reaching out to the very best variety of folks within the highest variety of international locations amongst 192 Red Cross and Red Crescent associations internationally. He identified that its income-generating work to fund humanitarian support operations and monetary sustainability additionally made it the “biggest such national society in the world.”
“We ran multi-dimensional campaigns. In terms of humanitarian assistance, we provided aid to 30 million people and reached out to 2.5 million people affected by disasters. We also helped 3 million displaced people, in their destinations and along the way. We also helped Turkish state agencies with our crews, particularly through our search and rescue crews,” he mentioned.
The Turkish Red Crescent will give attention to “Innovation and Sustainability” in 2023, Kınık mentioned. “Innovation here means realizing new ideas in improving our operations. With sustainability, we aim to work on efficient use of existing resources,” he mentioned, noting that they might enhance their catastrophe help division for work on addressing the problems associated to local weather change. He mentioned their catastrophe monitoring system could be boosted with work for “prevention and projection” of disasters, including that they might additionally faucet synthetic intelligence for his or her catastrophe administration system.
The charity will open 10 new soup kitchens and can attain a capability of serving 212,000 meals every day, other than cell kitchens which is able to carry this quantity to 680,000 meals every day.
