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WHO Country Office in Turkey
“I could not hold back tears when I watched a family on television being separated by the clashes in Ukraine. It reminded me of the scenes we witnessed back in Syria.”
Razan Alelas is from Raqqa, Syria, but she now lives in Izmir, Turkey. She was studying to be an agricultural engineer in Syria before deteriorating conditions forced her and her family to flee the country in 2019 and seek refuge in Turkey.
Alelas is now employed in Turkey under a project entitled Supporting the Employment of Syrian Personnel in the Turkish Health Sector. As a member of the Community Health Support Staff (CHSS) programme, she helps Syrians in Turkey who cannot access on-site health services due to advanced age or disability. It has given her hope for her future.
The project is funded by the German Government through KfW Development Bank and run by WHO’s Refugee Health Programme.
Finding a purpose
The first few months in a foreign city were challenging for Alelas, who did not speak Turkish. She was also constantly worried about the well-being of her relatives back in Syria. Before leaving Syria, she did her best to collect all the official papers from her school documenting her educational status. However, she was not able to enter her final engineering exams. In Izmir, her struggles were slowly making her depressed.
Alelas’s neighbours came to the rescue. They knew that she wanted to learn Turkish, so they referred her to the Association for Solidarity with Asylum Seekers and Migrants, an implementing partner of the WHO Country Office in Turkey, where she could study the language. Leaving her home every day with a goal in mind truly helped Alelas and enabled her to land her job with CHSS.
CHSS is run by the WHO Country Office in 7 provinces in Turkey. CHSS personnel schedule regular visits and provide basic home-care services to Syrians. Alelas is a proud member of the programme.
“We truly care for them”
Alelas has attended many training sessions organized by WHO in Turkey on how to provide home-based health-care services. She says that this helped her mental health take a turn for the better.
“Before, I was sleeping all day, not knowing what to do with myself. Now, I am filled with energy and start my day with a purpose. When I first set foot in Turkey, I couldn’t even dream of being employed here. I am so happy that now I have a daily routine, feeling strongly that I am part of a community,” she explains.
“Every day, my path crosses with people who suffered the same hardship I did. So, there is familiarity in what I do. Our approach is to provide comprehensive care. We not only provide health care, but also check whether the bedridden patients and people with disabilities are victims of abuse. We truly care for them.”
Future plans and hopes
Alelas now has ambition again. She is aiming to complete her graduate degree and advance her career once her Turkish language skills improve. She is also full of hope for her future, saying, “Despite all the challenges I faced, I am proud of myself that I got out of all those hardships and became much stronger.”
She also hopes to see the end of the clashes in Ukraine. “I hope that this tragedy in Ukraine ends soon so that the suffering of the people ends with it.” Reports from the war-torn areas bring back troubling memories for Alelas and all the Syrians in Turkey who had no choice but to flee.
In line with the principles and priorities defined in the WHO European Programme of Work 2020–2025 (EPW), the CHSS programme provides home-care services to the Syrian population in Turkey. The EPW’s focus on health for all is instrumental to better protecting 1 billion more people from health emergencies.
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