The Rotary Club of Rayleigh Mill joins the worldwide family of Rotary in providing help to the victims of the Turkish/Syrian Earthquakes.

The Rotary Foundation Trustees have decided that all donations made from the date of the earthquakes until 31 March, will go to the Turkey/Syria Disaster Response Fund and an additional $125,000 will be offered to Rotary districts affected by the earthquake through Disaster Response Grants.

The three Rotary Districts in Turkey have provided almost 100 articulated lorries of emergency supplies including generators, tents, winter clothes, nappies, hygienic pads, food, water, fuel, toys. to the disaster regions. They have also sent multiple excavators and similar construction vehicles to assist rescue teams. They have established 4 Rotary Centres in the affected areas to provide relief aid including a tent city in Iskenderun composed of 100 tents with a power line and heaters provided for each and every tent. As well as providing aid volunteers the local Rotary District is providing a doctor and a nurse for medical aid to quake-victims.

In the long term the Rotary Districts in Turkey are working on a bigger and sustainable project to build a container city which will provide the victims with secure homes, health, education and hygiene facilities until they can return to their normal way of life.

Rotary's project partner ShelterBox has been providing basic emergency aid to disaster areas all over the world for the last 22years. The organisation has a stock-pile of emergency ShelterBoxes that are strategically located throughout the world  and are frequently the first organisation on the scene of a disaster. ShelterBox have an emergency response team assessing the needs in the Turkey/ Syria region and how it can respond. 

The Rotary Club of Rayleigh Mill has a long history of supporting ShelterBox and, in its immediate response to the disaster, has voted to donate a £590 ShelterBox to replenish the stock that has gone to the aid of earthquake victims.

The club also recognises that, although Turkey has suffered most in this disaster, there are also thousands of victims in Syria. Médecins Sans Frontières have had a presence in Syria for 12 years serving the victims of the civil war in that country and have now come to the aid of the victims of the earthquake.  The club has, therefore, decided to donate a similar amount to Médecins Sans Frontières to support the work that the organisation is doing with the earthquake victims there.

The club is now exploring ways to set up a Crowd Funding site to try to raise funds that will be used to help establish the proposed container city to provide safe, secure, housing to the many victims of the earthquake who have lost everything.