Our History

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Story of Our Foundation

The Names Stolen by War

"One of the soldiers entered with a hostile demeanor and warned that anyone attempting to leave the bus would be shot. Even when I was caught under the bombs in Aleppo, I had never felt death so close. But now, it was right beside us. I was praying for a way out. We had been waiting for eight hours, and the inside of the bus was freezing. We had a little water and food, but I had to find a way to take care of the children's need for a restroom.

By the twelfth hour of our waiting, the sky had darkened. With each passing moment, the cold became more unbearable, and our hope began to fade. The children were crying. As their cries echoed, I found myself lost, not knowing what to do. There was no way to explain to them the situation we were in. They had already faced unimaginable fears at such a young age."

After twenty-two hours, sleep, hunger, needs, fear had overtaken our minds and bodies. I thought that if I slept, they would kill everyone. My heart was breaking as I saw the armed men approaching the bus. Sometimes I felt like screaming 'Enough is enough, if you are going to kill me, just do it!

At one point, when there was movement around us, I thought the time had come and they were going to kill us all. Because it was nothing they wouldn't do.”

The world recognized Esmar and the orphans he cared for in a basement in Aleppo. 47 orphaned children called out to the world via video from a dark basement and asked for their rescue from the siege in Aleppo.

As the team of the Orphan Foundation, we find ourselves in a small town on the outskirts of Idlib, Syria. Esmar, who survived the siege of Aleppo, is recounting the horrors she lived through while trapped in a basement and during the evacuation on the bus. The world first came to know Esmar and the orphans she cared for in the depths of a basement in Aleppo. 47 orphaned children, stuck in the dark confines of that cellar, had reached out to the world through a video, pleading for rescue from the siege that surrounded them. After lengthy negotiations, a humanitarian corridor was finally opened, and though it was a struggle, the children were eventually saved.

For now, they are safe, sheltered in the basement of a house. A thin rug, two stoves, and nine sleeping mats. These are all that fill the space of a once wide room. The orphanage’s director, Esmar, is a young man not yet thirty. As he speaks of their experiences in Aleppo, he suddenly pauses and points to a little girl. Her head is bandaged, one of her legs in a cast. He tells us they don't know her name, which is why they’ve come to call her Sevra.

Sevra's true name and age remain a mystery. In an airstrike, she lost every member of her family. Only she survived the collapse of the building, and because of this, no one can say which family she once belonged to. After receiving medical care in the hospital for some time, she was brought to the orphanage. It is believed she is about one year old. The other children, in an effort to give her an identity, named her Sevra, which means "revolution." To Sevra, the children of the orphanage are not merely fellow survivors, but her siblings.

Esmar then gestures towards another child—a sweet little girl, around four or five years old. He tells us she too carries a similar story. Her name is Sema. Four months ago, she was abandoned at their doorstep. She cannot walk, nor can she speak. There are marks on her legs, silent testimonies of a painful past. What she has endured, what kind of shock led her to this condition, remains a mystery. Do her parents still live? What is her name? How old is she? And why is she here? All these questions remain unanswered.

Half of the children in the orphanage have lost both their parents. They are children born from the war, raised amidst death and destruction.

After spending some time with the orphaned children in Idlib, we are on our way back to Turkey. Along the road, we witness the scars of war. Thousands of homes with no smoke rising from their chimneys, buildings with shattered windows and missing walls; streets obliterated by tanks and planes; a ghost town… Everything is left unfinished. The upper floors of homes left untouched, new shops, marriages, hopes, dreams—everything is incomplete...

The 47 children, rescued from the heart of the war, are now safe, but is this a true salvation? Can children who have witnessed death and destruction so closely ever truly recover? This is where the story of the Orphan Foundation begins. With the question, "And then what?"

The journey to seek answers to these questions and find solutions took shape under the name of the Orphan Foundation. By the time the foundation was established, the conflicts in Aleppo had intensified, and thousands of people were trapped under siege. Thus, the first step of the Orphan Foundation was to respond to the call of orphaned children in Aleppo, a call that would echo to the world. Today, this hand extended to Syria will soon reach out to every corner of the globe. The Orphan Foundation will work tirelessly to heal the hearts of the world's suffering children.