Şehriban Aslan/JINHA

AMED - The Light of Hope Women's Cooperative organizes activities for children and women in the Sur district of Diyarbakır. However, they haven’t been able to operate for seven months due to the 24-hour curfew and attacks on the district. Nevin Yakut, one of the cooperative's founders, said they couldn’t use the Cooperative building due to the blockade and that they were worried for children suffering from the psychology of war.

The Light of Hope Women's Cooperative was founded in 2004 when women from different backgrounds came together and founded the cooperative. They organize many activities in Diyarbakır for children and women. The cooperative is situated in the Dabanoğlu neighborhood of Sur, Diyarbakır province, but has not been able to organize activities regularly since summer due to the 24-hour curfew imposed in Sur.

Nevin Yakut, one of the founders of the cooperative, said, “We support education for children in the 7-14 age group. It's not only education; we also give music lessons to the children. We give education to children aged 0-6 and teach them how they can produce materials from waste materials. We provide education to children in order to provide an outlet for their energy.”

Nevin stated that the majority of the population in the Sur district is poor. Therefore, they organize social events to raise awareness for children.

“Our cooperative is situated in the Dabanoğlu neighborhood of Sur," said Nevin. "We haven’t been able to reach the cooperative building for a long time because of the attacks on the district. We hardly have contact with the children and women. We can't contact displaced families as a result of the curfew.”

Neriman Dinçkan is a cooperative board member.

“We haven’t been able to enter the neighborhood for months. Children suffer severe trauma. I have difficulty reorganizing and returning to normal with the children. We don’t have a place to organize activities now. People are faced with leaving the district, and we have tried to reach them," said Neriman. "We have contacted more than 300 children up to this point. However, one of the children is still living in the district. This child is in the middle of the war. We try to think about how we can help him recover when we contact him.

“We can only organize some activities with the psychologist. We organize an activity for children every 15 days. Some psychologists and musicians have come from Istanbul, Izmir and many cities in western Turkey. They support us voluntarily and a brige is formed between the west and the east," said Neriman. "We will continue to support the children."

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