Humanitarian Relief Effort for Earthquake Victims

FUNDRAISING FOR EARTHQUAKE VICTIMS TO RECOVER THROUGH SPORT PARTICIPATION

The purpose of this fundraising is to help earthquake victims to recover through sports participation in Türkiye. We will provide educational materials and sporting goods for affected children such as notebooks, sports balls, athletic shoes, and t-shirts.

On Feb 6th, two terrifying major earthquakes took place in the southern part of Turkiye (magnitude of 7.8 and 7.6 within nine hours back to back) It is considered one of the biggest earthquakes in the area in the last centuries. 6 days later, a third major earthquake (magnitude of 6.4) took place in the southern part of Turkiye again, where over one million people already suffered. As soon as the news was heard, rescue teams from over 60 countries rushed to help impacted people in 11 major cities in ten provinces. The earthquakes affected over 13 million people and forced over 1.5 million people to be evacuated or relocated to safer places.

The official death rate is over 55,000 people already in the region. The earthquakes demolished and/or damaged over 250,000 buildings and houses already. Some independent news agencies report that over 100,000 people might have died as the local agency and the government try to assess the damage, clean, and secure the impacted area, and find safe places for over 800,000 people who lost their houses during the earthquakes.

For sure, such strong devastating earthquakes have impacted young children tremendously, (socially, emotionally, and psychologically), not only because they lost their house and/or family members, but also because they no longer get a chance to go to school, socialize and play sports. Hundreds of school buildings and sports facilities have been collapsed or seriously damaged and need to be demolished for recovery.

So, the aim of our fundraising is to provide educational material and sporting goods for affected children such as notebooks, sports balls, athletic shoes, and t-shirts. We believe that sports will be a wonderful tool to help these children recover, continue to engage, and develop with their peers and teachers through sports participation if we can provide materials. Consensus has been made to help earthquake victims with local officials in Kahramanmaras and Malatya provinces in Turkiye. Our first goals are to provide the following sports and educational materials as we meet our financial goals;

We greatly appreciate your generous donation and thank you so much for helping affected children recover and play sports again, and be happy.

Adem Kaya, PhD

Founder of Forever Champion (a non-profit org (501 (c))

Asst. Prof. of Sport Managment

Bowie State University

Maryland, MD

Email: [email redacted]