The Scouts have been active in Türkiye since 1910, providing children and adolescents with a uniform education that seeks, above all else, to instill a love for one’s nation and to cultivate morally upright, civic-minded individuals.
Scouts around the world take an oath as part of their formal initiation ceremony, meaning that they are both volunteers and oath-bound members of the organization. A scout’s promise to fulfill his duty to God and his country and to help others encompasses humanitarian work, including search and rescue efforts, in the event that a disaster leaves their compatriots in need. In taking this oath, scouts commit to constantly improving themselves. Those between the ages eleven and fifteen pledge to always be at the ready. This means that scouts in this age group strive to be prepared for anything—not only physically, mentally, and intellectually but also by honing their knowledge and skills and maintaining their equipment to the best of their abilities. Scouts aged fifteen to eighteen, on the other hand, rephrase this notion to emphasize their duty to serve society.
The Scouts’ educational approach predicates self-improvement on serving society. While this may seem unrelated at first, this commitment means that the Scouts is the largest volunteer search, rescue, and humanitarian organization not only in Türkiye but globally. The Scouting and Guiding Federation of Türkiye (henceforth “the Federation”) entrusted these responsibilities to its Search, Rescue, and Humanitarian Aid Institute, established in the 1980s, and this institutes subordinate teams.
All of the current 265,000 have received scouts specialized training from this institute. From the age of six, scouts are trained to recognize dangers, to understand the impact that disasters have on communities, to feel comfortable asking for help, and to provide accurate descriptions, instilling in them a keen awareness of their surroundings and a readiness to act at a moment’s notice. In addition to rescue training, scouts are equipped with the knowledge and skills to ensure their own safety and that of others, able to navigate natural environments day or night regardless of weather conditions.
Scouts’ promise to remain physically strong, mentally alert, and morally upright is their greatest asset in humanitarian efforts. They place no value on publicity or recognition; instead, they are driven by a commitment to serve God, their country, and their community. This dedication empowers them to work tirelessly in disaster zones, even in the absence of supervision and while facing extreme exhaustion. Scouts’ exceptional preparedness for disaster response is rooted in a combination of qualities that equip them to handle even the most severe situations. Their widespread presence across the country ensures they are available wherever needed, while their ability to communicate under any conditions and their self-sufficiency in the absence of outside support enable them to operate effectively in times of crisis. Their discipline, hierarchical structure, and team spirit—rooted in their methods and shared worldwide—instill in them with a strong sense of order. Understanding authority and approaching each task with wholehearted commitment further bolsters their readiness for the challenges posed by disasters.
In the event of a disaster, all scouts are expected to head immediately to the disaster zone with whatever gear is necessary for them to mount an effective response even before receiving an official communiqué from the Federation. Scouts who have completed search and rescue training are to report to Türkiye’s Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency (AFAD) while those without such training are to report to the Turkish Red Crescent (TRC) and operate under their direction. As a result, scouts from across the nation began heading to the disaster zone as soon as they learned of the situation. Turkmen scouts from Yayladağı were present at Disaster Emergency Social Assistance (ASYA) warehouses only a few hours after the first earthquake struck at 4:17 a.m. on 6 February. Scouts from Adana trained in rescue operations began sifting through the rubble to free people trapped underneath. Scouts from Türkiye’s other provinces were likewise ready at their posts awaiting further instructions well before the break of dawn. AFAD-certified urban search and rescue teams, equipped with heavy gear, reached debris sites and began rescue operations shortly after the second earthquake struck, searching through the rubble of eighteen buildings within twenty-four hours of their arrival. By the end of the first day, 2,672 fully equipped scouts had arrived at the disaster zone and joined ongoing search and rescue efforts for the next three weeks.
Scout leaders trained in first aid provided emergency health and first aid services both as members of our rescue teams and at our camp site. Scouts employed as healthcare professionals drove distribution vehicles and attended to the medical needs of the disaster survivors they encountered. These vehicles were also used to transport sick and injured people. Scout leaders who served as religious clerics participated in funeral services, handling burial procedures for the thousands of people who had lost their lives in the disaster.
Scouts performed various duties during the first days following the disaster, including directing traffic, collaborating with AFAD coordination centers, and extinguishing tent fires. Given their expertise in setting up tents, scouts were responsible for distributing and assembling the tents that arrived in the area and for organizing tent cities—the majority being set up in Adıyaman and Kahramanmaraş. The Federation’s facilities in Kilis and Osmaniye were each converted into tent cities and distribution hubs.
Despite all the challenges, scouts used their skills to set up camps equipped with all essential amenities in the areas where they were deployed. They implemented a rotating watch system to manage these camps and see to the needs of their inhabitants, from cleanliness to handling their own organizational logistics. In addition to assisting thousands of earthquake victims across the eleven affected provinces, the Federation ensured that the needs of every one of its members were adequately addressed. True to the principle of always being prepared, scouts arrived in the disaster area with their own accommodation and food supplies, which enabled them to begin immediately upon arrival.
The Federation established its headquarters, main tent city, and logistics hub in the Serinyol Forest Nursery in Hatay. TRC warehouses, logistics hubs, and camps were set up in the other affected provinces. This allowed a total of ten thousand scouts, each serving for at least one week, to participate in humanitarian efforts over the period of three months in the earthquake disaster zone.
Drawing on their expertise in child and adolescent education, scout leaders were instrumental in helping children regain a sense of normalcy by including them in traditional scouting exercises. We invited twelve hundred children to our camps, where they engaged in a variety of scouting activities aimed at fostering their psychological recovery. To this end, these children helped make eighty-one thousand seed balls, with those containing cypress seeds to be placed at the graves of those who lost their lives in the disaster. The Federation has similarly committed to ensuring that these children will be able to continue their scouting activities upon returning to their home communities.
Distribution
Scouts played a central role in the distribution of much needed supplies, helping to unload trucks, sort arriving items, and deliver materials and provisions at aid warehouses run by AFAD, TRC, ASYA, municipalities, and NGOs. Scouts operated forklifts, watched over facilities, and carried out various duties at these warehouses around the clock. As a result of their efforts, eight thousand reusable emergency blankets were distributed to disaster victims shortly after the first earthquake. Scouts likewise delivered truckloads of tents, sleeping bags, mats, space heaters, water, flour, rice, canned goods, and other essential items procured by the Federation itself.
To expedite distribution, scouts provided disaster victims with a phone number for submitting requests via text message. Scouts then sorted these requests by location, either supplying requested items from their own tent warehouses or sourcing them from other locations. They consolidated and packed the supplies in one place, after which they loaded them into a single vehicle so that they could be delivered without undue delay. Scouts’ efforts in this vein resulted in a total of thirty thousand aid packages being delivered over the course of three months.
Particularly during the initial days following the earthquakes, distribution teams would call ahead to aid recipients’ locations to ensure that packages were delivered without interrupting ongoing search and rescue efforts. Scouts also surveyed areas to identify people in need of help, relaying this information to the proper authorities. Instead, scouts focused primarily on providing aid to mountain villages and to more remote communities that lived far from major roads.
Villagers were joined by relatives displaced from larger urban areas, causing small villages, which typically had no more than a hundred residents, to swell to up to two thousand. Since many of the more remote villages suffered from damaged or poor roads, they very often did not receive adequate aid. The inability of many villagers to travel beyond their homes for assistance further exacerbated the direness of the situation at hand. However, thanks to our vehicles’ off-road capabilities and our experience navigating rugged terrain, we were able to reach these hard-to-access areas and see to the needs of everyone there. The demand for food, water, hygienic supplies, space heaters, mats, and tents surged significantly following the massive influx of displaced people. Over the next three months, we consistently visited these areas and provided whatever residents needed. In addition to distributing dry food, we gathered spinach from local fields and distributed it to families in need with the villagers’ permission.
Scouts likewise played a vital role at ASYA’s distribution hubs located in tent cities. In the immediate aftermath of the earthquake, the mix of second-hand and new clothing presented significant logistical challenges. To address this, scouts worked night shifts, quite literally burning the midnight oil following the destruction of electrical infrastructure to sort through incoming donations and ensure that only usable items made it to the people who needed them. Scouts and their vehicles were crucial in transporting essential supplies such as burial shrouds, body bags, and emergency blankets between warehouses in the affected provinces. Scouts who were unable to reach the disaster area supported these efforts by sorting and loading materials brought to aid warehouses in their local towns onto trucks for delivery to the disaster zone.
Zakat and fitra donations entrusted to us from throughout Türkiye were delivered to disaster victims in need. Scouts from across Türkiye were joined by their peers from Azerbaijan, Lebanon, Libya, and Kosovo in the efforts to clear debris. Scouts from Syria, Palestine, Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Egypt living in Türkiye supported us throughout the entire ordeal. Members of the World Scouting Organization, as well as scouts from both Lebanon and Greece, likewise provided invaluable support by sending or personally delivering disaster aid in the form of financial contributions and essential supplies.
Communication and Coordination
The Federation is equipped with radio systems capable of maintaining communications with any part of the world, irrespective of environmental conditions. With thousands of scouts who are themselves amateur radio enthusiasts, the Federation is well-positioned to employ all of its capabilities in this regard to their fullest potential. Scout leaders deployed in disaster zones use a separate radio frequency to maintain communications with one another and their headquarters. Our teams in Istanbul and Konya worked around the clock to ensure there were no communication interruptions as scout leaders coordinated teams’ movements between disaster sites. When the Federation’s president and team leaders arrived on the scene shortly after the first quake, they were quickly made abreast of the situation and teams’ whereabouts. The communications network allowed them to issue whatever directive was necessary to expedite operations on the ground. Although the Federation possessed two satellite telephones—one in the disaster zone and one in the Federation’s Ankara headquarters—they were never needed. Our amateur radio operators and scout leaders who doubled as communications specialists also helped public institutions communicate with one another.
All of the aforementioned measures were carried out were overseen and coordinated by leaders. Every aspect of the support and relief efforts— determining where individuals would be dispatched from, where they would be deployed, and how transportation would be organized—was meticulously planned and executed simultaneously across all provinces within the disaster zone.
Given the frequent occurrence of earthquakes in Türkiye, a catastrophic event of this magnitude was inevitable. Consequently, both emergency response authorities and our organization had made preparations for such a disaster. Our limited budget, however, has prevented us from allocating sufficient funds to training and equipment. With greater support, however, we can increase the number of these unsung heroes in our country and enhance the quality of disaster training in a relatively short period of time.
After each disaster, we hope that meaningful steps will be taken to enhance disaster preparedness and, equally important, search and rescue team training. We honor all those who perished in the most catastrophic disaster Türkiye has experienced in the twenty-first century, including both the scouts and scout leaders who gave their lives in the line of duty—may God of mercy on their souls.