After the uprising in Syria in year 2011,more than 2,5 million Syrians fled for safety to Turkey.Most of them settled in bordering provinces because of their need to continue contact with their belongings in North Syria. Their influx affected very heavily the local municipalities on infrastructure,service and security sectors. With poor resources to respond to respond the needs of the refugees municipalities faced crititcal problems that without involvement of state and civil society was looking as impossible to settle As an example we can take the posiiton of Gaziantep and Kilis Municipalities.In Kilis the original population is 98000 .The number of Syrians exceeds the original popluation as 116000.In Gaziantep one third of the population is now Syrians.
In cooperation with these two municipalities we moved to assist them in Turkish lessons,vocational training ,legal and psycosocial needs of the refugees.Municipality facilities will be used for such trainings of the children and women mainly and programs will be supervised by these municipalities. Relevant agreements with Gaziantep and Kilis Mayors have been signed on 17 May 2017.On behalf of IBC,President Recep Uker signed the cooperation protocols.On behalf of Gaziantep Mayor Ms Fatma Şahin and on behalf of Kilis Mayor Hasan Kara were the signatories. In the ceremony held in Kilis,Head of department of Social Services Mr Ugur Tunceli and Directyor oıf Culture and Social Affairs Department were present şncluding IBC Regional Program Manager Alper Mavi and board member Aziz Civelek.
IBC has simiklar protocols with Kucukcekjmece and Sultanbeyli Municipalities in İstanbul and provided Turkish lessons and vocational training services to thousands of Syrian refugees.The Turkish lessons are educated at TOMER Centre of Istanbul Aydin University
