Women Who Bring Distances Closer

Sevde Sevan Usak, Hatice Yentürk and Ayşe Bilim are three women that make the world a beautiful place with their voluntary works in Africa and Asia.

Sevde Sevan Usak and Hatice Yentürk are in Tanzania, Ayşe Bilim is in Cambodia. All of them want a better world for children.

Photography artist and traveler Sevde Sevan Uşak married a Masan farmer in Tanzania and became the leader of a charity action there. She and her husband founded an association called “Rafiki Organization” to support women and children’s education. Sevde Sevan carries out social media campaigns for sustainable projects such as water wells, fruit gardens and vegetable planting. She plans to plant fruit trees in almost every field in the region. She has projects some other projects like founding an agricultural cooperative, community clinic, library and organizing workshops for children. She received an award in the 4th International Benevolence Awards, which is organized by Turkey Diyanet Foundation with a slogan as “Goodness will change the world.”

Hatice Yentürk and her husband founded “Assalam Foundation” in Zanzibar. Besides humanitarian aid, they organize voluntary works and try changing the fate of the region. Worked in Turkish Airlines social responsibility projects for a long time, Yentürk decided to move to Zanzibar and founded a foundation to support orphans and mothers. By organizing stitching workshops for women, she managed to provide them a sustainable means of living. Assalam Foundations and Usturlap Workshops cooperated in organizing a science-art summer camp in Zanzibar this year. Yentürk indicated that humanitarian aid organizations should be sustainable, not a onetime event. She plans to carry out sustainable studies in other parts of Africa, directed especially at children and youngsters. Hatice Yentürk says they are open to any kind of voluntary work in Assalam. “Everyone can do something for us. Corporations may hire the young people we give training, educators can be volunteers in our school, housewives can make donations, children can buy and play with the baby dolls made by orphan mothers. Reach us via info@vassalam.org and we can find you something you can do for us,” she continues.

Ayşe Bilim decided to move to Cambodia to open a soup kitchen for orphans after she read online news. After running social media campaigns, the soup kitchen was funded enough to be permanent. Ayşe Bilim has also opened a school as a part of her project which she calls “living fields”. “The world will be a more beautiful place when you worry about a child that you didn’t give birth to. Goodness is contagious. I know I transmitted it to hundreds of people. Do not be afraid to do favors,” she says. Ayşe Bilim calls her project “living fields” with a reference to the killing fields where collectively more than a million people were killed and buried in the Cambodian genocide. She expects support for her project which includes soup kitchen, school, park, health cabin, restaurant and workshops for women.