Abstract:

Abstract enTurkey is struggling with the fast and increasing flow of refugees accompanied by internal disputes and involvement in the unfortunate war of Syria. The complexity of the situation put the government in difficult situation in developing social projects and strategies to meet the need of the refugees. Cultural differences and language barriers create different problems compared to previous migrations at the societal level. The most important challenge is the spread of Syrian disputes to Turkish territories, which has resulted in the loss of many lives. This has stirred unrest amongst citizens who are affected against Syrian refugees who they see as complicit in the ongoing war. While there are remarkable projects and facilities initiated by governmental agencies and NGOs on the ground, there are still obstacles to meaningful integration and the creation of a cohesionary process for the Syrians. The effectiveness of NGOs’ inputs and contributions cannot be measured because of intensive flow of refugees and Turkey’s internal problems. NGOs-especially faith based NGOs- recently started to criticize their work area, which focused on humanitarian aid rather than social cohesion, which is urgently needed. The unknown course of the war does not allow people to settle down and attain some stability, however, in spite of the challenges posed by the influx of migrants and Turkey’s internal problems, most people in the society tolerate the migrants largely from the compassion of their religious beliefs and because of the committed efforts of NGOs which play a crucial role in dealing with migration and the problems it presents in Turkey. This paper focused on the projects, programmes, campaigns, and discourses of some NGOs in order to display their role in the social cohesion process of Syrians. IHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation that has the enormous relief projects for Syrians has been introduced as an example in showing the peoples’ awareness in supporting the relief projects, which are run only by donations. According to findings of this paper, faith based Turkish NGOs are very crucial mechanisms in moderating huge differences between Syrians and Turkish. They ease the works of other governmental or semi governmental agencies by conducting huge relief projects by mobilizing Turkish people.

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