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How a group of digital activists is helping earthquake survivors in Turkey and Syria find shelter

How a group of digital activists is helping earthquake survivors in Turkey and Syria find shelter

 


CNN –

Five digital activists have created a website to help provide shelter for earthquake survivors in Syria and Turkey that have left millions homeless in freezing winter temperatures.

Just 48 hours after an earthquake reduced cities to rubble, Avi Schiffman built TakeShelter, a site that connects displaced people with hosts around the world who offer their homes for shelter.

“Tens of thousands are currently out in the freezing cold without shelter,” Schiffman, 20, told CNN. “TakeShelter puts power back into the hands of those displaced by the earthquake, allowing them to find shelter now instead of waiting in the cold or in overcrowded relief centers.”

Some 50,000 people were killed after the February 6 earthquake, and more than 5 million people in Syria alone may need shelter assistance, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

Schiffman worked with four other software engineers — 19-year-old Krish Shah, Adrian Gray and Will Debo, and Anant Sinha, 21 — to launch TakeShelter. The site was launched by InternetActivism, a non-profit organization she founded to develop digital humanitarian tools, such as websites and apps, “to help those affected by injustice, disaster, and displacement.”

“Our generation often feels caught between an overwhelming desire to help and a feeling that there is nothing we can do,” Debo told CNN. “I hope internet activism shows people how much we can all make a real difference in the world. It just requires you to think a little differently. I’m so excited that we’re seeing real people finding the shelter they need on our platform.”

People who wish to open their homes to displaced earthquake survivors can register at TakeShelter.org and post a public list. Displaced earthquake survivors, in turn, can search the site for nearby host families.

Besides advertising on social media, volunteers are on the ground to find displaced people and connect them directly to hosts through the website. Other Turkish groups, activists and influencers are also promoting TakeShelter through social media and word of mouth, Schiffman said.

According to Schiffman, more than 100 families displaced by the earthquake have found shelter through the website, which has been translated into English, Turkish and Arabic.

Ukraine Tech Shelter is invading its neighbor, said Schiffman, who created Ukraine Tech Shelter Sanctuary a year ago. According to Schiffman, this website has connected 100,000 Ukrainian refugees with hosts from all over the world.

Pictures of the effects of the earthquake in Syria and Turkey are imprinted in the mind of Moaz Mustafa.

The American-Syrian humanitarian aid worker saw corpses and children living under trees and grieved for families struggling to survive in freezing temperatures and streets crowded with survivors who are now homeless and with nowhere to go.

“Millions are still on the streets and would die in the cold if they had no shelter,” he said. “The lucky ones have a tent, even if it’s a terrible tent. If they have at least a tarp, they’re lucky.”

Mustafa launched the Syrian Emergency Task Force (SETF) in 2011 to help Syrians displaced by the civil war find housing, education and medicine. Now the group has partnered with InternetActivism to start TakeShelter, connecting homeless earthquake survivors with hosts through a website.

“The partnership means we are able to help shelter Syrians who have been devastated by 12 years of war crimes and which is now the worst natural disaster in the history of Syria and Turkey,” Mustafa said. “Avi and InternetActivism working with SETF can help us leverage technology to help people left alone by the world.”

When combining a digital platform where anyone can register and a crisis involving vulnerable people in desperate situations, there is always a safety risk.

International organizations such as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees have warned that refugees and other forcibly displaced people are “an easy target for human traffickers, who take advantage of the instability of their situation to exploit them.”

To mitigate risks and maintain the safety of the website and the displaced persons who use it, hosts undergo mandatory identity verification checks by taking a live photo of their government ID, which moderators then do a live photo verification of their face.

TakeShelter includes warnings on every listing to guide refugees on how to safely search for a host on social media, alert family and friends about who they are staying with and how to recognize potential red flags. The site also provides local emergency numbers as well as a UNHCR hotline for immediate assistance.

“Avi and InternetActivism have a proven track record in safety, and we at SETF ensure that anyone wishing to host submits the required documents,” Mostafa said. “Our teams on the ground are available to ensure follow-up should there be any issues.”

A team of moderators reviews each listing on a regular basis and reports malicious users to local authorities. Users on the site can also report listings.

As a Jewish person whose grandmother survived the Holocaust thanks to a family who secretly gave her shelter, Schiffman understands the long-term impact of sheltering the vulnerable.

“When I see lives saved through our work,” he said, “I like to think that it enables future generations to live.” When people have a safe shelter, they can focus on fixing their lives, getting new jobs, settling into new locations, and enrolling their children in school. It is my hope that TakeShelter allows people to live full lives that they otherwise would not have.”

His quest to find ways to connect humanitarian aid with technology in the aftermath of disasters like an earthquake is what led him to meet his co-founders of Internet activism on social media. All five took a break from their universities to develop the nonprofit, which they are launching in 2022.

“We hope our work will serve as a blueprint to show that anyone with a laptop and an internet connection can make a massive positive impact on their community. All you have to do is think creatively,” said Sinha, TakeShelter software engineer.

The group’s goal is to build a suite of humanitarian tools – including the TakeShelter – that are immediately ready when a crisis hits, rather than developing tools from scratch each time.

Although many people have turned away from the news of the earthquake, the InternetActivism team says they won’t slow down efforts to get as many survivors off the streets as soon as possible.

For those displaced by an earthquake, the first and most important step in their arduous journey toward recovery is simply staying alive. Without enough food, proper winter clothing, and a safe shelter, every cold night they survive is considered a miracle.

Particularly in Syria, where access to aid is severely limited and other political risks threaten the daily lives of citizens, “safety is a low barrier,” according to Mustafa.

“People in Syria are used to barrel bombs, chemical weapons attacks, heavy artillery, Russian bombing, ISIS, the list goes on about how vulnerable these displaced people are,” he said.

Having witnessed repeated disasters in Syria, from air strikes to starving children and the psychological repercussions of tragedies, Mustafa dreams of a world where people stop forgetting their homeland,

He said, “They did not survive the worst humanitarian catastrophe in their country’s history, they suffered war crimes and the failure of the international community time and time again.” “At the very least, we need to provide them with humanitarian aid to help them survive, when many of them cannot survive even another day.”

Sources

1/ https://Google.com/

2/ https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/05/us/syria-turkey-earthquake-take-shelter-displaced-homeless/index.html

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