Turkey program · Annual

Şanlıurfa Village Support

Every year, The Community Garden helps underprivileged villages around Şanlıurfa, Turkey with education and basic needs — school supplies for a new year, warm clothes for winter, toys, and learning materials for village schools. Soğmatar is one of the villages we return to, but the work isn't limited to any single place: wherever local partners tell us the need is real, we try to show up.

Village children holding new school backpacks during a Community Garden distribution near Şanlıurfa Village children holding new school backpacks during a Community Garden distribution near Şanlıurfa
School supplies

Backpacks, notebooks, pens, and materials so village children start the school year ready — not left behind for what a family can't afford.

Winter clothes

Warm coats, boots, and clothing for children heading into cold winters in the villages and hills around Şanlıurfa.

Toys & learning

Toys and educational items — counting posters, books, and classroom materials — for village schools and the kids who use them.

Basic needs

Where a family or village needs essentials to get through, we help with the practical things that make daily life and schooling possible.

Local-led

Ramazan Aygat, our Turkey director, and trusted local partners decide what is useful, where, and when — so support is real, respectful, and accountable.

Consent & dignity

Photos and updates are shared with care. We show the work, not the children's faces where that isn't ours to share, and keep private what should stay private.

How it runs

An annual effort, not a one-time gift.

Every year

Each year we plan a round of support with local partners — school supplies before the term, warm clothes before winter — and return to villages like Soğmatar while adding new ones as needs and relationships grow. It sits alongside our other Şanlıurfa work: SpeakingLab scholarships, the Taş Tepeler archives, and past earthquake relief.

Why it matters

A backpack, a warm coat, a full classroom — small things that decide whether a village kid keeps showing up to learn.

Support Village Kids