from syria to street light !

                 


Evening all, I get asked ALL.THE.TIME how I started streetlight, what was my motivation and my inspiration, so here goes, I guess its about time I tell you the story. From the start.

Last July / August (2013) I went on holiday to Turkey. Now I bet your all reading this thinking what has this got to do with people being homeless in Bournemouth but bare with me, its gonna be a good read I promise.
I have been going to Turkey for 18 years so off I went for a 5 week trip to see friends and travel around for a bit. After Bodrum, Fetiyeh and Olu Deniz I arrived in Istanbul where I was going to stay for a few weeks. As I said above I have been going to Turkey / Istanbul for many years, so I know whats the norm in Istanbul. My first night there my friend and I were heading out for a night on the tiles and I noticed these people everywhere. Gypsy like people. With blond hair and rags for clothing. This wasn't the norm in Istanbul, not that many anyway, not in big crowds and not looking like they did. I knew they were not Turkish purely from the color of their skin and the way they dressed.  They certainly were not from Istanbul.

My friend went on to explain they were Syrian / Kurdish refugees who had fled from Syria, fled from refugee camps and were seeking safety on the streets of Istanbul. I simply nodded and went out and got drunk, and didn't think about it till the next day.

The next day I went for a walk in Eminunu , the area I had seen the refugees the day before, to see if I could figure out some things. Upon arriving I was surrounded by young children, all under 10 years old, asking me for food, in Turkish. I speak Turkish. None of the children had shoes on or proper fitting clothes, and they were filthy. I wanted to take them all home and wash them, cloth them and feed them. I instantly felt sorry for them and wanted to play with them. I sat down and started playing with them before buying about 30 simits. Simit is a bread roll, they cost something stupid like 20 pence each. All the children were over the moon and the parents started thanking me and inviting me to sit on their blankets. I was now experiencing true middle eastern hospitality from people that had nothing. Being invited to sit on their blankets was like being invited into their homes.

In Turkish the parents explained how they had fled Syria for safety in Turkey. They had been in Refugee camps on the border but due to the severe sexual abuse going on with men coming from the gulf they fled the refugee camps and came to Istanbul. Thousands of them came to Istanbul and they now live on the streets. They all had lots of children and many of them had new born babies.  My heart was totally broken and I was adamant I wanted to do something to help these people but I wasn't sure what.  I stayed with the families for a few hours then headed home.

Knowing Istanbul well was a bonus in a situation like this. The next day I went to a cheap bazaar and bought more clothes and toys and shoes than my two little weak wrists could carry ! I was weighed down with bags of T shirts, vests, trousers, socks, underwear, shoes, sun cream, Vaseline, bread, water, milk, cheese, nappies, formula, toy cars, wet wipes, tooth brushes and tooth paste. What ever I thought they needed, I bought.

I arrived again at Eminunu and went around to all the families sat around in the heat and handed like bags full of water, nappies, clothes and food. They were so grateful, they cried. They asked me why. They wondered who I was, why do I want to help people that no one cares about. I stayed with the families for hours again and played with the children before heading to another area that I knew was full of Syrian Refugees. Again, the families were all so grateful and couldn't stop thanking me. The children were fascinated with my white skin and my piercings, they all wanted to touch me and play with me.

The rest of my days in Istanbul pretty much carried on like this. I was hooked. I fell in love with the families and just wanted to play with the children. I couldn't bare seeing the children without the essentials that they needed. There feet were getting burnt from the hot floor, so I bought them all shoes. They were getting sick from dehydration and starvation, so I tried to make sure I gave them all food and water.

My friend Verity helped me and every day we would play with the children and chat with the parents. Some stories they told us were truly heart breaking. Mums told us how their children had been bought off them at the borders and sold into brothels. Because the families were so desperate to get in to turkey and have some money, they were forced to sell their daughters to the sex trade. Another lady told us she had four children. At the border two children were crying. She was forced to smother the two that were crying, resulting in them dying, to be allowed across the border.

I headed home to England knowing I wanted to do something to help more.

I set up a facebook page asking for donations of clothes, nappies, formula, toys etc and was soon inundated with offers. I asked people if they would like to return to turkey with me and hand out the clothes. I had about 15 people wanting to go, I emailed back and forth, explained everything but one by one everyone dropped out for various reasons. It was down to me... and of course mother came to the rescue.

Over the next 6 weeks I plastered it all over Facebook, begged people to help, organised charity fundraising events and worked really hard to get donations and suitcases.

During those 6 weeks I fell sick. I couldn't breath. Breathing was getting harder and harder for me so I eventually went to the hospital. This was just five days before I was due to fly back to Turkey with 15 suitcases full of goods. In the hospital they told me I had gone into heart failure and I was very sick, but I could still fly as long as I didn't lift anything or do anything too strenuous. Bloody hell, I was flying to Istanbul with 15 suitcases going on a mission to help the Syrians. What was I to do ? People begged me not to go. They told me other people would help the Syrians. My life was more important etc, but being the stubborn cow I am , I flew.

I flew and I had a heart attack on the plane. A bloody heart attack. At 22 years old. Shit.

I was hospitalized is Istanbul but I didn't want to stay in so I returned to my hotel. Thankfully, due to setting up a Facebook page, I had managed to set up a group of volunteers in Istanbul. Some ex pat, some Syrian, who would be helping me and mum.  The whole ten days I was there I didn't lift anything and everyone was great, helped me loads and made sure I didn't die ! Thanks guys !


Anyway, with our 15 suitcases full of clothes and what not, we managed to make hundreds of refugees on the streets happy and a little bit more comfortable. With money we raised we bought warm winter blankets from the markets. It was due to snow, I wasn't sure how many people would survive. Especially the children and babies. One lady was heavily pregnant. I asked her where she was going to give birth. She shrugged and gestured to the park she was sat in. She was going to give birth in the park, in the snow.

Soon enough our time was over and we were due to come home. I was taken to hospital straight away and stayed in for a while having various treatments. I wanted to return to Turkey in the new year and continue working with the Syrian Refugees but I just was not well enough, I was sick for months and not able to do anything.     


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This year, I went back to turkey for a month. Of course I looked for all the families I helped before and I found a few of them. I was so glad to see they had survived the cold harsh winter and that the babies had survived. I did the same thing again, I bought shoes, clothes, toys, water and milk. 

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Once I started to feel a little better I decided to do something in Bournemouth, I still wasn't well enough to go to work but I was well enough to volunteer. I found a soup kitchen based in Bournemouth and volunteered a few times. I liked it, I really did. There was just one problem. The soup kitchen, and their outreach walks, was very religious. I am not religious and I am a firm believer that you should be able to choose religion, not have it pushed onto you. I felt it was pushed onto the rough sleepers and it just wasn't my thing.

I decided to start walking around Bournemouth in the day time with sandwiches and cakes and hand them out to rough sleepers. I soon started building up relations with them and started to know all their names. I then made it a permanent thing to walk town on a Saturday night with a friend and hand out sandwiches, crisps water etc.  It was just a small thing, we were seeing around 15 people on a night. One night I arrived in town off the bus, and a group of rough sleepers were waiting for me. They had met me off the bus and were waiting for food. I was amazed. Week after week more people were waiting for me at my bus stop, it soon became a group of around 30 waiting for me in the square.

It went on like this for a while, feeding our big group in the square then doing our walk. But before I knew it, the rough sleepers had pretty much made their own little soup kitchen for me. Word spread. More people turned up. More people started to know my name, the time my bus came in and that I would be bringing food. Wow, I now have a soup kitchen.

Things escalated pretty quickly.

The news spread like wild fire and before long we had over 50 people waiting for us to feed them. We started doing hot meals and were donated some tea and coffee flasks from a local hotel owner. Things grew and grew.

That was a few months back and since then we now have up to 100 people at our soup kitchen on a Saturday night and on our outreach walks we can feed another 20 people.

I never intended to be a soup kitchen. I don't know what I wanted to be. I just wanted to be a friend to people in need, I wanted to offer them support and love and help them when they needed it. Now we are a soup kitchen, but I like to say we are so much more than a soup kitchen. The rough sleepers are our friends. Were all one big family !

We have done so much more than just feed people, 

Theres many many stories I can tell you about how we have helped people but thats going to be another blog post.

I hope you have enjoyed reading how street light came about, please feel free to share and leave comments in the comment box below !