Written by: Eda Ersar
Let’s take a moment to remember and take lessons from the earthquake that struck South East Turkey and Syria a year ago during this month, on the 6th of February in more than ten cities in the region. This article will be focusing on the experience of the Turkish population due to personal experiences while respecting the Syrian experience and wishing for a smooth and rapid recovery under the challenge of the ongoing decade old conflict.
The consecutive earthquakes with magnitudes of 7,7 and 7,6 that the epicenter was located in the provinces of Pazarcık and Elbistan in the city of Kahramanmaraş in Turkey resulted in the death of more than fifty-five thousand individuals and heavily blessing of more than hundred thousand according to official national numbers.The minister of Interior Affairs, Yerlikaya shared with public that more than thirty five thousand buildings collapsed and more than fourteen million people had their lives impacted directly over the span of nine hours, starting at 4 a.m. in the morning to finally ending at 1:30 p.m.Currently, approximately seven hundred thousand victims live in more than four hundred containers established in the region, still facing the problem of access to vital resources and services.
The two earthquakes marked the history of Turkey by being the earthquakes that resulted in the highest number of deaths, the biggest destruction of cities and that impacted the largest area, while the Turkish government took seventy-two hours to intervene in the region following the two earthquakes, a dramatic level of delay causing unrecoverable damage.Throughout the article, we will discuss the impacts of the region’s destruction on children in psychological and social dimensions while doing our best to remain optimistic by highlighting the initiatives for the recovery of children.
To understand better the importance of the policy and decision making mechanisms regarding natural disasters that do not always tend to be a shocker, we have to dig in deeper in the context of the earthquake and more specifically in the national experience of the earthquake in Turkey.
Firstly, what differentiates earthquakes from other types of natural disasters that appear at an unexpected moment and lead to destruction is the fact that earthquakes do not take place as a momentary or once at a lifetime catastrophe impossible to predict.Precisely, certain regions of the world live with earthquakes as a part of their geographical and tectonic reality while expecting it at any time. In that sense, 98% of the population in Turkey lives in "earthquake regions”. As a result, the majority of the population is at risk of facing an earthquake at any time. Yet, such a dangerous reality does not translate into systematic preparation, prevention and risk assessment policies regarding natural disasters in the country.
While it is not the earthquake itself that kills but the infrastructural and social policies that kill, as reclaimed multiple times by Turkish opposition actors during the period of the earthquake, the impacts of earthquakes are not limited to momentarily urgent problems and they tend to have long-term negative consequences on varied social and economic groups.In simpler terms, everyone is impacted by earthquakes in one way or another and for more than the moment of the earthquake, as demonstrated by the 2023 earthquake in Turkey that highlighted the fragility and lack of preparation against earthquakes on individual, social and administrative levels, leading to urgent and long-term problems.
While we can agree that all social, economic and cultural groups are affected by earthquakes, children remain as one of the groups that are affected the most. Both children who directly experience the earthquake and those who hear about it are affected on different levels while their reactions can vary depending on their development stages, the reactions of the families, the degree of loss, the family dynamics and the psycho-social support.The reactions that the earthquake can provoke vary due to individual and social factors as enumerated, yet certain general tendencies are observable within different groups of children such as the feeling of helplessness, anxiety, denial, distrust and worry on the psychological level and sleep disturbances, nausea and eating disorders on the physical level (Aral, 2023), all having an impact on the future path of children from all groups.
To sum up the reactions that children give against earthquakes, we can rely on four processes which can be categorized as choc, emotional intensity, grief and healing.
The first reaction that children give when experiencing an earthquake is the psychological choc that can last up to 24 hours, detectable with the symptoms of lack of concentration, problems of memory, hallucinations, solidification or other physiologic reactions (Kukuoğlu, 2018). The second reaction, emotional intensity, which can take place two or six days following the first reaction can be characterized by extreme anger, fear and lack of trust towards oneself and the surrounding environment (Özkan ve Çetinkaya Kutun, 2021). The third reaction is qualified as the realization of the events, with the general tendencies of the desire not to know what happened and ignorance.The fourth and final reaction is considered to be the the healing process during which the event is accepted, daily activities are resumed, resistance decreases, and a state of calm and well-being is achieved (Kukuoğlu, 2018).While these are the main psychological processes that children go through during the experience of an earthquake, they are further impacted on different aspects regarding socialization and education, with long term effects beyond physiological problems.
The experience of an earthquake shapes a child’s world drastically by being a total destruction in different dimensions: destruction of the family, the surrounding and the environment in which the child is situated, the social habits and routines, education and access to vital services and resources. The earthquake of 2023 in Turkey was no exception in being a total destruction, eleven cities and buildings varying from historical monuments to residences were destroyed, families were left homeless; they couldn't access basic services such as clean water, education, and medical care while it was impossible to follow the regular social routines.Within such a case of total destruction, humanitarian assistance was provided to the affected individuals in the region by local, national and international humanitarian aid programs and initiatives completing the vital tasks that the national authorities’ actions lacked.However, humanitarian action has its limits and couldn’t prevent the damage of the consecutive earthquakes that fragilized the political and economic structures in Turkey that were already hanging on a threat, as the country has been facing one of the most serious economic dead-ends in its history and the government has been witnessing its power shaking within the upcoming elections and the increasing undemocratic decisions that face growing criticism both on national and international dimensions.Again, the bill of fragile political and economic systems shaking even more due to a natural disaster was paid by the well-being of children.
Considering the preeminent role of the rapid and international circulation of news and media that characterizes our modern society, an important phenomenon that impacted the well-being of children beyond the psychological complications and the fragility of economic and political structures was the expression of the earthquake by medias and economies worldwide, under the lens of capitalist motives. More precisely, we observed in this case that different medias and economies strategized the series of events since the 6th of February by using earthquake footages without subjecting it to any censorship or scrutiny in order to increase their viewings and to create a loyal audience or by using pictures of children without consent to propose new designs and increase their sells.In order to achieve this effect, the marketing and media strategies were focused on provoking agitation in society by using photographs and illustrations of earthquake victims, mainly of children as the most touching public face, playing on the feeling of trauma and sensibility around the country.Eventually, we can qualify such financial strategies as emotional exploitation towards individuals experiencing the earthquake, especially children.
After going through both personal and social trauma, recovery for children is a challenge considering the fragile economic and political structures in the country.Yet, the recovery is not an impossibility. In that sense, the local and national initiatives are focusing on building a new conception of the “normal” for children while trying to ensure its harmony with the previous routines of life.In order to do so, both governmental and independent initiatives rely mainly on the continuation of school life and the implementation of social and sportive activities increasing children’s responsibilities on tasks that give them a higher sense of control over their lives.An important source of expression and recovery for children throughout these activities has been games no matter the age groupe.Games that favor a symbolic expression of their experience and feelings are being used as sources of therapy and recovery ensuring a smoother passage to a new normal.Besides the social, cultural and sportive activities based on games that heal the wounded young souls, the support of school and society remains crucial for children’s recovery.A comprehensive return to school is a fundamental step for children not only in terms of distancing them from the ambiance of chaos but also for ensuring their right to education in an understanding and easygoing environment, as education is fundamental for a child’s path and remains as one of the main elements that deserves the most attention throughout the recovery process after a natural disaster.
Independent local and national initiatives have been developed with the objective of reinforcing the recovery of school life besides the policies of the Ministry of National Education. Firstly, the Ministry of National Education (MEB) established a crisis desk to ensure the coordination of efforts following the earthquake. In the crisis desks in the provinces, in addition to the general directors and department heads of the MEB, some provincial directors of national education from provinces unaffected by the earthquake were assigned in order to reinforce the return to school while respecting the traumatic experience of local education officials.Furthermore, MEB made the choice to postpone the second semester of the 2022-23 academic year nationwide knowing that the whole territory was impacted by the series of events since the earthquake, and the mid-term break was extended by two weeks with the goal of giving families and students more time to recover. MEB did not limit its recovery time policy to the break and proposed different starting dates to the students in the earthquake zone unlike those in the seventy-one cities outside of the region.
Precisely, based on the extent of the impact of the earthquake in ten provinces, three separate categories were established to determine the starting date and new education locations. In these provinces, it was decided to transition to education on a district and school basis according to the integrity reports of the school buildings: Unlike the rest of the country who went back to classrooms on the 20th of February, the first category began education on March 1st, the second category on March 13th, and the third category started on March 27th, while buildings were still being awaited to be opened as the remaining educational buildings such are the vocational education practice hotels, teacher houses, and vocational high schools were transformed into service points using the mobile kitchen infrastructure they contained while these service points were also used to provide tents, sleeping bags, stoves, and blankets.
Independent initiatives working for the recovery of education in the region considered the decisions of postponing the starting dates and transforming educational buildings into service points as efforts to be completed.For these independent humanitarian actors, the key to a safe and harmonious return to school had to go beyond dates and buildings and it is related to the very core of the national education policies. In that sense, independent initiatives have been focusing on ensuring a safe and comprehensive return to school in every step of disaster management regarding its impacts on children and education.In order to do so, these initiatives focus not only on monitoring the effects of the earthquake on education policies and practices put in place, but also on joint monitoring efforts in the civil sector from a supportive and solidaire standpoint.Within these efforts, consideration is given to the roles education can play in the recovery process after disasters, as well as the roles it should assume in preventing future disasters and/or mitigating their impacts. In that sense, these initiatives emphasize that interventions following earthquakes should take into account pre-existing chronic problems and the needs of vulnerable groups. Additionally, the need to strengthen the child protection system, of which education services are an important component, is underscored.
At the end of the day, despite the different positions on the political spectrum, disagreements and regional differences, the Turkish population has been united for children, their most vulnerable yet precious, and does not hesitate to express their views in order to improve the existing system and to engage to make sure that action is taken when it comes to offering children the best of the educational, economic, social and cultural environment…
Sources
https://www.unicefturk.org/yazi/depremin-1yili#:~:text=Suriye%27de%20devam%20eden%20kriz,ve%20hayat%C4%B1n%C4%B1%20kaybetmesine%20yol%20a%C3%A7t%C4%B1.
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