ANKARA
Turkey’s state humanitarian relief agency is helping the Crimean Tatars with projects in education, culture, and accommodation with the aim of easing their integration in Crimea's political, social and economic life.
The agency's President, Serdar Cam told Anadolu Agency that Turkey will resolutely continue to help the Crimean Tatars, as Turkey has a duty of responsibililty to those who share a common history with the Turks and to those "who have suffered so much."
Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TIKA) has provided accommodation through the purchase of 1,000 houses and through help in the construction of many others to the Crimean Tatars who returned to their historical homeland after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
So far, the agency financed infrastructure works for the provision of both clean drinking water and water for domestic use to 14 Crimean villages which houses more than 25,000 residents.
TIKA also restored two hospitals in Crimea while it provided medical devices for five hospitals. The agency supports the treatment of young victims of the 1986 nuclear disaster in Chernobyl, some 140 kilometers north of Ukraine's capital Kiev with rehabilitation programs in the form of summer camps since 2011.
The relief agency have also implemented over 100 projects to preserve the culture of Crimean Tatars to hand it down to the next generations, including the restoration of Zincirli Madrasah - a traditional Muslim school, and several projects to keep traditional arts alive like jewellery, pottery, embroidery and carpet making.
In another wide-scale project in education launched in 2006, eight primary schools providing education in the Crimean Tatar language were repaired. Also 16 village schools were restored, aid for equipment was supplied for 15 schools and TIKA cooperated with three universities in the development of Turcology education.
TIKA's Ukraine Program Coordination Office in Crimea has been actively conducting projects in the Crimean capital Simferopol - "Akmescit" in Turkish - since 22 November 1995.
Working within the framework of the "Agreement on Technical and Financial Cooperation between the Government of Turkish Republic and the Ukrainian Council of Ministers" signed back on 14 November 2002 in Kiev, the state relief agency carried out around 171 projects in Ukraine between 1995 and 2013.
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