Turkey Fostering Social Responsibility Through Disaster Response

By an IPS Correspondent Reprint | | Print |

UNITED NATIONS, Apr 7 2013 (IPS) - In October of 2011, an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.2 struck the city of Van in eastern Turkey.  Hundreds of people died and many more were injured as relief workers and local authorities rushed to the scene.  Turkcell, a communications and technology company used its innovative mechanisms to manage and produce uninterrupted communication service between victims who had cell phones and were trapped during the earthquake and rescue workers.

The UN Development Programme (UNDP) in partnership with the permanent mission of Turkey held a special discussion last week in New York that brought together business leaders and civil society to talk about disaster preparation and relief.

“Turkcell has been historically prepared, because of readiness, because of what we have experienced in the past—including the big earthquake in Istanbul in 1999—we have always developed these disaster recovery systems.”  A Turkcell representative told IPS.

Aptly titled Innovation and Resilience in Corporate Response to Disaster, Turkcell CEO Sureyya Ciliv focused on two elements that assisted in the quick response his corporation was able to provide after the earthquake in 2011: using technology to safeguard people’s lives and partnering with NGOs and government administrations to ensure support during and after crisis.

Partnering with the Turkish Education Foundation (TEV) on a project called Turkey’s Moneybox, Turkcell created a way to ensure future help to victims of the Van earthquake by allowing for the continuation of education within the community.  With an online campaign facilitated by the communications corporation, donations poured in via text, email and website towards the building of a campus that would house both students and teachers in the affected area.

“We had set the principles and we believed that the key factors of the Moneybox were transparency and good partnerships.” Added a Turkcell representative.  Banking on transparency and embracing social media, the Moneybox initiative proved to be an innovative response to disaster, mainly because of its active participatory element.

Donors could easily track the process via daily updated videos on the campus construction and updates from teachers in the area.  As stability began to flow back to the Van community, Turkcell demonstrated that both technology and resilience have the ability to change the way corporations respond to natural disasters.