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TIAFI - Drei Musketiere

TIAFI

Izmir has been a gateway for refugees attempting to cross to Europe. Approximately 120.000 migrants and refugees reside currently in the city, where they have been facing difficulties accessing medical care, education and employment. There are many women who have lost their husbands and families, and now find themselves living alone with their children.

TIAFI is an association from Izmir, working to empower and integrate women refugees and migrants, and their families. The association has a community center in one of Izmir’s central neighbourhoods where many refugees from Syria have settled. Within the community center, there is a counselling service which provides individual assistance for medical, legal and educational services.

To provide employment support, the association also has a training center where women can learn basic vocational skills that can enable them to access employment, for instance in textile industries. Besides, TIAFI runs literacy courses in Turkish, and provide meals for up to a hundred people on a daily basis.

Drei Musketiere

Drei Musketiere is an association in Reutlingen and aims to help refugees from the Syrian crisis area and other vulnerable people from crises and disaster zones, directly where help is urgently needed. Their primary objective is to provide support to the local people with the essentials, such as water, oil, bread, rice, toiletries, as well as clothing and shoes.

The association works together with their partner organization TIAFI, and they are committed to strengthen and integrate especially the vulnerable refugee women and their families in Basmane, Izmir.

Together they try to fill the gap and offer a variety of services to offer a holistic, secure space. Since they believe that integration is the key to empowerment, their project intends to bring together all the nationalities that stand side by side and make them work equally on the projects.

There were 3 visits which happened in Istanbul, Hatay and Izmir. With the support of TIAFI, Drei Musketiere visited ASAM Women and Girls Safe Center in Antakya, Yuva Community Centre in Kırıkhan and the refugee camp in Reyhanlı.

 

After the visits, the partners made a training course at TIAFI for 25 women. The intention was to come up with products to sell and to find promotion methods for these. During the training, Boundless Bags were created, and now, the bags are sold online on Drei Musketiere’s website. Anyone interested can buy these bags and support refugee women in Izmir.



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