SYRIAN REFUGEE CAMPS - Family Financial Support

INTIAL PROJECT TO SUPPORT CHINESE UIGHUR REFUGEES

The Inti Raymi Fund arrived in Turkey with the intention of supporting the Chinese Political Refugees called Uighurs.  The IRF did extensive internet research in advance and brought along almost a 1cm of paperwork backing up this great cause.  It appeared that the Turkish government was supporting these exiled refugees as substantiated by our news publications in hand.  The Chinese Uighurs reportedly sought political asylum through an illegal human trafficking route from southern Thailand.  Upon realizing the whereabouts of the Uighurs by the Chinese government, the Uighurs were “flushed out” by the public and private sector in Thailand at the behest of the Chinese government.  Upon becoming aware of this, the Turkish government claimed these political asylum refugees as related peoples to the late Ottoman Empire and of Turkish bloodline.  This emotional support by the Turkish government, backed up by our multiple internet articles, led us to empathize and be compelled to support the Uighars, who appeared special to the Turkish People – The religious freedom of Islamic refugees from China.  This all seemed to make sense to us, help the Uighurs who were reportedly political/religious asylum refugees on the run, and at the same time, this helps Turkey who is carrying this financial and emotional burden.  With our research articles in hand, the IRF began the search for these elusive Uighurs in need of help.  Our initial search led us to a large city in the central part of Turkey, which initially received these refugees.  At the same time this Uighur issue was going on, the Turkish government had been incredibly gracious accepting over 2 million Syrian & Iraqi Refugees from the ongoing wars in the regions.  We truly believed that if we helped with this Uighur Refugee crisis, that it would directly help these people and indirectly help the country of Turkey.  By completing this Uighur Project in Turkey and by spreading awareness of this great cause, we hoped to raise awareness abroad and bring in more donors and more foreign aid into Turkey.

ARRIVAL INTO UIGHUR REFUGEE APARTMENTS

We spend the better part of our first morning driving around asking taxi drivers, locals, the trash collectors, and even the police department to help us locate this infamous housing complex which we read so much about in our articles.  After 2-3 hours driving back and forth around town, we arrived at our destination.  Immediately, we knew we were in the right spot when we noticed what appeared to be Chinese women wearing traditional Islamic clothing and the men were clearly different looking from the traditional Turkish men in the town.  Upon arrival, we were greeted by four “less than friendly” humanitarian workers (or so we thought) who were taking care of this mini-refugee camp housed in three older apartment buildings.  Immediately, this helping project turned into an interrogation of sorts, with the men wondering why we were here and why are we trying to help these people.  We honestly could not understand their unwillingness to allow us to help these innocent refugees in a humanitarian crisis especially since they were working/helping there already.  After taking our passport information, they photographed our taxi’s license plates, and informed us that we needed legal papers of approval from the nation’s capital far away before we could be allowed enter.  Since they were not friendly like typical humanitarian workers, we became very confused and saddened that we came all this way to Turkey to help people, who we believed the Turkish felt important enough to help, but they wouldn’t let us do “something – anything” to help them. This was very confusing to us.  Upon being turned away and being bewildered, we had to figure out what to do next.  One of our best attributes within the Inti Raymi Fund is our organization’s tenacity and determination to help others in need.  Accordingly, we immediately went into “plan B” mode.  Past experience in Jordan taught us about the overwhelming ratios that roughly 15% of refugees live inside the formal camps, with the vast majority of 85% living outside these camps.  With this refugee  statistic knowledge, we knew there must be an abundance of Uighur Refugees living among the Turkish Peoples who certainly must need some form of help.  Driven by the purest intentions to help, and knowing these statistics, we stopped the taxi and decided to visit a nearby mini-grocery store nearby to inquire about Uighurs who may be living among the peoples.  We believed the refugees living among Host Families would not be receiving the financial support for food and clothing which the formal refugee camps receive through international agencies or governments.

SECRET AGENTS SURROUND US

Within 3 minutes of our innocent inquiries about the Uighurs with the woman in the grocery store, we were surrounded by the original unfriendly men at the Uighur apartments and about 11 more undercover agents, arriving in six marked and unmarked police vehicles.  More and more vehicles arrived with agents speaking in Turkish which we didn’t understand, they kept talking and discussing our internet research paperwork we brought along, showing grieving Uighur women with their tiny hopeless children crying.  These refugee images appeared to show stress from their long journey to the safety of Turkey.  Who wouldn’t want to help these people if you are a compassionate humanitarian worker?  As the agents arrived, they kept asking us over and over, “Why did you come here?” Why do you want to help them?” “Where did you get this information about the Uighurs?” “Where do you get your money?” This interrogation in front of the mini-mart went on for 2-3 hours.  Our only comfort was knowing that we had the “purest of intentions” and had done nothing wrong.  Additionally, we were comforted that there were many high-rise apartment complexes within view so “hopefully” the public was witnessing this polite, but nerve racking interrogation by these secret police or national agents and hopefully someone was filming the incident. My father taught me that… “The great thing about always telling the truth, is that the truth never changes”.  Over and over for several hours these men were waiting for us to say something different or bad, which would incriminate us for doing something wrong as it relates to the Uighurs.  At one point, it became very cordial with us sharing personal photos with numerous agents and getting selfi-photos with them since I am covered in tattoos and they found that amusing.  The lead agent was on and off the phone communicating with his supervisors, who simply could not believe someone from America would come and help the Uighurs from reading an internet article.  Apparently, all of these articles were censored from public view in Turkey and that was the confusion, we had the info, but the agents did not.  There appeared to be even greater curiosity of “how we found these articles”.  We later found out that the Turkish Government sensors certain information on the internet, including our Inti Raymi Fund website which we found was blocked for some unknown reason in Turkey.  After several hours in the sun being questioned, the lead agent told us “we were in a lot of trouble”, but 15 minutes later, he said he believed us and this continued interrogation would be cleared up in about 30 minutes, but we needed to go to the station.  Knowing we were heading to the police station but knowing we did nothing wrong, allowed us to remain relatively calm until certain telling comments were made in the car on the way to the police station by the lead agent. He revealed he believed we were trying to cover our tracks and that we were trying to camouflage our real intentions in Turkey helping the Uighurs. This new information made us panic because this was far from the truth.

AT THE POLICE OFFICES

We ended up spending another 2-3 hours in the lead agents office being asked more questions and being observed by various other undercover agents including what appeared to be a psychologist, all with the intention of trying to catch us possibly acting guilty or behaving in some suspicious manner.  When anyone is accused of something which they did not do in a foreign country, that would lead anyone to act a bit nervous or different.  Fortunately we kept our composure as we passed the time laughing and telling stories of our other adventures in other countries and discussed our favorite movies in the presence of their trained observers.  Long story short, they finally realized they made a mistake bringing us in, then decided to let us go, thank goodness.

ONCE RELEASED, WE WENT TO PLAN B

After an entire day was taken away from us, we nonetheless were glad we were released.  Unfortunately, after this scary incident, we felt we were being followed and watched for the rest of our time in this region.  Half normal paranoia from being falsely accused of something we’ll never know, and the other half being a legitimate concern for the unknown in a foreign country.  We later “put two and two together” after our ordeal and deduced that these agents “falsely assumed” that we were ISIS recruiters in the Uigher Camps, trying to recruit terrorists. This was an absurd assertion, given the fact that our mission and organization is exactly opposite this, coming to help in the region and the fact that we had huge IRF logos on both our vests.  Understandably, this region and its security forces are on high alert after their recent civil war and with Turkey joining the international war against ISIL.  They were actually just doing their job and there was a huge misunderstanding.  We’re glad thats as far as the misunderstanding went.

A NEW BEGINNING THE NEXT MORNING

With a day taken away from us and us not being able to help who we came to help, the Uighurs, we headed out early the next morning in search of another great project to support while we were in Turkey.  This brings up a great point. Many people ask us, “how do you find your projects?”.  Well as you follow this story, you will realize that I’m not brilliant, just observant and compassionate.  We proceeded in search and asked a number of people about the local Syrian War Refugee situation within this semi-isolated community of Cappadocia.  This region of Turkey is famous for tourism, specifically hot air ballooning over a lunar style topography.  Ironically, this beautiful surreal community was where my wife and I spent our 25th wedding anniversary only about six weeks earlier.  We had a fantastic holiday there and suggest you visit Turkey & Cappadocia specifically.

Knowing that locals in a small town know everything, led us to the local Turkish rug store.  The store owner suggested a small unofficial refugee camp which appeared to not be receiving any federal funding or non-profit support.  Upon arrival to this make shift tarp camp of refugees, we instinctively knew these people needed help, and it was obvious.  Again, we’re not brilliant, we simple search and keep our eyes open for opportunities to help in the world.  The Inti Raymi Fund had a bilingual partner with us named Anas, he is fluent in English and Arabic.  This proved invaluable with our communications within the camp of 120 people Arab speakers.  We soon realized that this camp was slightly unique with roughly one half of the residents being of Turkish Arab descent and the other half being Syrian Arab descent.  This Arab connection and familial connection across the international boundary lines of Syria & Turkey was the catalyst for the creation of this particular camp.  The Syrians of this camp sought refuge in Turkey at various times during the Syrian War arriving from various exit points from Syria.  Their families within this region of Turkey received them and were nomadic in nature, living as “Beduins” off of the land, periodically moving as necessity dictates from place to place.

UNDERSTANDING WHO WE’RE HELPING

After many hours of dialogue, we had a very good understanding of their lives, past and present and more importantly their current urgent and important needs for survival during this war time.  We offered up a myriad of budgeting ideas for them to consider such as school supplies, computers, cell phones for migration logistics, food & water sanitation devices, clothing, new tents for the frigid winter months, sleeping bags, vehicles for transportation to local food markets or migration, etc.  As a westerner, these all may seem like logical items, even a new school construction was within reach with their $25,000 budget.  Well, upon listening and understanding their nomadic culture and lifestyle, with their children not even attending school nor do they really need a western education to herd sheep or farm, we realized we must as always give them the Respect and Dignity to take care of themselves as they see best, forgetting what we think is best.  I know, this is hard to accept as you read this.  The community revealed to us that of the 120 people, roughly 25 were adult men, 25 were adult women with the remaining 70 being their children.  Given the culture of these peoples, the husbands are the only bread winners of the home with the women staying home to care for the tent and children all day. The roughly 25 men therefore were the only source of income for this entire camp of 120 people, extending themselves as a community very thin.  We also learned that there is only seasonal farming work for the men if they could find work.  During their limited farming season, a day consists of showing up for work at 6:00am, with only a handful of the strongest men selected on a regular basis offering only $10 for 10 hours of manual farm labor or $1/hour.  These figures explain how precious our Inti Raymi Fund’s $25,000 cash infusion into the community really is.  Our sharing projects are very rewarding for us as well.

WHAT DO YOU NEED? HOW CAN WE HELP?  

With the hand to mouth obvious needs for survival today, and considering their upcoming freezing winter, the overwhelming votes from the roughly 25 adult men and 25 adult women was to evenly distribute the cash among all 120 people.  This $25,000 gift translated into $208.33/person which is an immense amount of new capital, breathing life into families who’s fathers’ daily wages amount to about $1/hour.  Each member had the same but different sense of urgency with some of the young males considering the arduous and dangerous migration to Germany or elsewhere, mothers seeking warm blankets for the upcoming winter.  Everyone needed new tarps for their makeshift tent structures which were wind whipped and tattered.  Fresh bottles for water, medicine and a doctors visit for a sick child had been out of reach before our visit and support.  If you want to see what the impact of this cash infusion had on the lives of the people we helped, simply look at their faces during and after our project in our photo collection.  We don’t work miracles; however, we know we are effective, because 100% of our money is delivered by us into the hands of the recipients.  In our opinion, when there are urgent and important needs such as in the case of refugees, this approach is far more effective than giving funds to a government or aid agency to distribute supplies on your behalf.  Far too many people at the top around the world are in line to siphon off their justified share, leaving nothing left for those initially intended to support.  We departed this community with a sense of calm and happiness, knowing we helped 120 people in the best possible way we could, allowing them the Dignity and Respect to pursue their destiny as they choose.

The Inti Raymi Fund became aware of the Uighur cause we wrote about through the effective journalism by BBC and their attached article.

We hope you enjoyed emotionally traveling and experiencing our chaos and eventual successful project we completed in Turkey.

Respectfully,

Chimu