Newbury volunteer caught up in Turkey fundraises for earthquake emergency aid

A Newbury charity volunteer, who became caught in Turkey during the recent devastating earthquakes, is appealing for donations for those displaced.

A day before the earthquakes, February 5, Sidra Quadri and her team from SKT Welfare (Spreading Kindness Together) – a charity that provides aid to deprived countries – had touched down in Istanbul and were on their way to the Turkish/Syrian border.

The 32-year-old, who usually fundraises within West Berkshire for the national charity, was in Istanbul on the way to Hatay with 19 other volunteers when the earthquake happened.

They were headed to Hatay to visit an SKT orphanage, called Springs of Hope, that houses Syrian children displaced by war.

This was Miss Quadri’s third deployment to the town where she said she has made many connections with orphans and refugees, proving them with food, water and aid.

Before the earthquake, on February 6, bad weather delayed the team’s flights to Hatay so they rearranged for flights the next morning, but they never envisioned they would wake up to the devastation that followed.

Stuck in among the chaos with no planes leaving the city, the team tried to find a way to join other SKT colleagues who were already providing aid to the Syrian refugees at the border.

“We didn’t book a flight home, we needed to know what the situation was first,” Miss Quadri said.

“We needed to find a way to get there to help but there were no flights, it was not safe for any of us to move and we didn’t know what was going to happen next as there could have been another earthquake.”

The only option for the team was to travel to Hatay by coach but with the extreme weather conditions it was looking impossible.

Miss Quadri, who also works as a criminal defence lawyer, said: “We sat there and we thought okay, physically we can’t go there so let’s start an appeal.

“We recorded videos and we generated a fundraising page and sent that out.”

The 20 people shared the emergency response appeal individually and have since raised a combined total of £44,269.

In addition to the fundraising for the refugee deployment they had initially set out to do, the group have raised £109,255.

Miss Quadri said she fears for the young orphans and refugees that she has met and how they must have felt in those moments.

She said: “First hand I know how hard it already is for them but now with the earthquake, they have been suffering even more.

“Buildings have collapsed, people are trapped, they are buried under the rubble.

“The death toll is rising and because people are still trapped under the rubble, we are not aware of what the death toll really is.

“In the UK obviously we have registered death certificates which usually gives you death figures, over there they’re just pulling people out of the rubble and burying them straight away.”

In Syria, there is an SKT-run hospital built in 2014, called the Al Huda hospital, which Miss Quadri said is now inundated.

“It is overrunning with casualties and that is why medical aid is so important because a lot of people are injured and they are suffering from this disaster so they need help.

“They need help to save the lives of those that have been pulled out and give that relief as quickly as possible.”

Miss Quadri landed safely in the UK yesterday (Thursday).

Her online page can be found on the SKT website here: https://www.sktwelfare.org/giving-together/sidraq/syria-&-turkey-earthquake/

Donations can go to specific causes from winter packs and medical aid to bread and food packs.