Photo by RET

Article by Ali Selim Kara, Communications Officer for RET

TÜRKIYE – In 2016, Zehra fled the devastating war in Afghanistan. With her husband forcibly taken to fight, she made the difficult choice to relocate the rest of her family to Türkiye. Now 27, she and her family have settled in Aksaray, and she has since given birth to her third child there.

However, life in a new country was filled with challenges, such as language barriers and cultural differences. Zehra, who struggled to speak and understand Turkish, expressed her difficulty: “I was not familiar with the lifestyle in Türkiye, and the culture here felt very foreign to me. This made my adaptation process very difficult. Speaking and understanding Turkish was also very challenging for me. It was one of the hardest things in the world for me to explain my problems when I went to the hospital or shopping.” 

“RET is not just a place where I learn the language. This center brings together refugees from different countries and allows us to get to know each other’s cultures better.”

As part of a project to work with refugee and vulnerable host communities, RET’s My Life Community Center in Aksaray helped Zehra overcome these challenges. Thanks to the Turkish language courses provided within the project, Zehra can now communicate more comfortably and interact with the locals. She said, “RET is not just a place where I learn the language. This center brings together refugees from different countries and allows us to get to know each other’s cultures better. Among my classmates are participants from Iraq and Syria. I enjoy chatting with them, making friends, and getting to know their cultures.” 

Photos by RET

Zehra’s only concern about her Turkish language education was where to leave her children while she was in class. Here, the child-friendly area support provided by RET came into play. Being able to leave her children safely in the center’s child-friendly area during the training, she expressed her satisfaction knowing that her children were learning new things. She added, “It pleased me a lot that my children, especially my youngest, who is 5 years old, learned Turkish songs, colors, and animal names. Knowing that my children are safe and having fun makes taking classes much more effective.” 

The challenging journey from Afghanistan to Türkiye, Zehra’s experience with RET, and her ambition for language learning have turned into a new period of hope and vitality. Today, she looks at life with more hope and determination.

There are many more stories like Zehra’s. To help us continue this critical work in Türkiye, donate to RET today.