SOS Children in Turkey
Overview of Turkey
Turkey is situated at the crossroads of Asia and Europe. It is both strategically and culturally very important. It was the centre of the Ottoman Empire until the 1920s when a secular republic was established by Kemal Attaturk. Economically, Turkey has a developed economy but still has a large foreign debt.
Our Work in Turkey
Bolluça
We began negotiations regarding the construction of an SOS Children’s Village in Turkey in the 1970s. It was, however, in 1987 that an agreement between a private Turkish children's foundation "Türkiye Korunmaya Muhtac Cocuklar Vakfi" (Foundation for the Protection of Children) and SOS Children was signed. A suitable plot of land was found in Bolluça, about 20 miles from Istanbul, and the construction work started in autumn 1988. In spring 1992, the construction was completed and the first children moved into their new home.
SOS Children also founded an SOS Children's Village in Northern Cyprus which is still operating today
After the severe earthquakes in August 1999, SOS Children's Village Bolluça built more family homes to help more children in need. In early 2001 the renovation works on the SOS Children's Bolluça site started.
A little SOS Nursery School for 30 children opened in 1992 on the site of the SOS Children’s Village. It has two classrooms and gives the children the opportunity to make friends, play educational games, and prepare for primary school.
An SOS Youth Home for older boys in Istanbul opened in 2001. Here, the boys can learn to take responsibility for their own time, budgets, schoolwork and employment, which will help them become independent and self-sufficient.
Since early 2010 the Turkish village foundation has again become independent from SOS Children and the 125 children in mainland Turkey are still being cared for in the Village without our involvement. However we still have an SOS Children's Village with ethnic Turkish children in it in Nicosa in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (which is de facto part of Turkey but de jure not). See sponsor a child in Northern Cyprus.
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