Natural disasters such as earthquakes cause people a great deal of physical, psychological, economic and social harm. Without doubt, the most vulnerable group in a disaster-affected community, whose daily routines come to a sudden end, is children. Since children who are only just beginning to grasp life are not yet mature enough to understand the harm and losses caused by disasters, it can take them a long time to overcome these effects. It is important to heal the physical and psychological damage and to strengthen anew the bonds children form with themselves, with other people and with life. It is not possible to observe immediately the concrete results of support work, carried out through art workshops, that aims to help children who have lost their sense of security overcome what they have been through and to heal some of their human emotions. However, we can say that the positive effects of all the activities carried out will emerge over the long term at different stages of the children’s lives. Above all, we can observe that not leaving the disaster-affected community alone, and even simply having them interact and take part in activities with different people within the flow of their daily lives, leaves a positive, healing effect on them.
- On the 2nd day of the 6 February earthquake, with an open call, we opened our arts complex to those whose homes were damaged and who had nowhere to go. After the building was inspected by an expert architect, it was judged to be safe. For 20 days, around 45 families got through the first days of the earthquake at our centre.
- On 13 February 2023, we began holding workshops with earthquake-affected children staying at the Diyarbakır stadium. As these workshops began, we obtained support from experts to train our team, who would be working in the field with children and young people after trauma, in Psychological First Aid, abuse and rights.
- 20-25 February 2023: setting up a child-friendly play area in the KESK tent area in Narlıkuyu, Adıyaman. The work in this area was carried out together with the Diyarbakır Child Rights-Focused Crisis Network. Over 4 days, a puppet-making workshop was held with 23 children aged 5-15. Throughout our stay there, children’s films were screened for the children every evening.
- 23-24 February 2023: workshops were held with 180 children in the town of Balyan and the village of Binevler in Adıyaman.
- Given the vastness of the earthquake zone and the need for coordinated work, we took steps to establish the Children’s Art Space Platform. On 23 February, together with 43 organisations, we made an announcement with an open call to grow solidarity for the platform, and on 6 March we held the platform’s first Zoom meeting with 75 organisations and 6 independent artists.
- As the platform, accompanied by experts, we held 4 training sessions on Psychological First Aid, abuse and children’s rights. These trainings were disseminated through video recordings.
- Since we were unable to continue working in the tent city in Diyarbakır, we began offering training in music, painting, creative dance and drama to earthquake-affected children on our stage. The workshops, which started with 12 children, were attended continuously by 43 children between March and June 2023. During this period, we staged 5 play performances on our stage for earthquake-affected children and reached 368 children.
- Between March and July 2023, we provided 4 different vocational trainings to our team who would work in the field in the Elele project and to external participants. In this way, we ensured our team was technically strengthened while working in the field.
- In April 2023, a 6-day field study was carried out to identify sites where the Platform’s Interaction tents would be set up, to build local partnerships and to prepare a field report. During this study, workshops were held with children. The workshops were as follows:
- Dostlar Settlement-Suavi-Serinyol: a puppet-making workshop was held with 54 children aged 5-13.
- KESK Coordination-Maraş-Narlı: a puppet-making workshop was held with 60 children aged 5-13. At the end of the workshop, the children performed mini puppet shows they had created using their own imagination.
- Pazarcık-Menderes Area: a puppet-making workshop was held with 72 children aged 5-13.
- 4-7 April 2023: in partnership with 3 independent American artists, we held workshops on music, dance and improvisation on our stage with 28 earthquake-affected children who had taken refuge in the village of Peyas.
- Between October and December 2023, with the proceeds of the 4th SoloFest, we staged 3 play performances for 240 children aged 5-13 in the Çınar district of Diyarbakır and in the village of Gömükan in Adıyaman.
- Between 1 October and 31 December 2023, as part of the project “ACT – Artistic Freedom and the Child and Youth Perspective in the Field of Arts in Türkiye”, internships for 6 young people who had received Children’s and Youth Theatre trainer training were carried out through workshops held at 4 different sites in Adıyaman, Maraş and Hatay. 76 young people aged 14-17 took part in these workshops. The internship programme was supported by the Gülriz Sururi – Engin Cezzar Theatre Encouragement Award given to Mordem Sanat by İKSV.