EUROPE/TURKEY - ALSO TURKEY SUFFERS FROM TOURISM CRISIS: CAPUCHIN MISSIONARIES CALL FOR A CONCRETE ANSWER

Friday, 13 June 2003

Antioch (Fides Service) – With the war in Iraq, Turkey is living another economic crisis because of the decline in tourism: this increases poverty particularly among the lower social classes which find themselves plunged into extreme poverty. This is the alarm launched to Fides Service by the Capuchin mission in Antioch, which helps many families providing food and other prime necessities, sums of money to help pay for medical treatment, or to start small commercial or craft businesses. “However, we too have to rely on the generosity of people sensitive to the needs of others” they say at the mission.
In a country which lives off tourism, Summer, cultural and religious – Maria Grazia Zambon a lay co-worker at the mission tells Fides Service - “the first to succumb are always the poorest: farm workers, small business men, drivers, waiters, craftsmen, guides, restaurant keepers. The collapse of the economy, already weak, is plainly visible. Families limit spending as much as possible and those living in cities rely on the help of relations in rural areas for a little home made bread, oil and soap and fruit and vegetables. Nearly every family has relations abroad, many in Germany, who manage to send some of their savings home for more urgent needs: health care and schooling for the children and to help prevent the part of the family which has remained in Turkey from falling into the chasm of debt. With this subsistence economy people live permanently in a situation of emergency.”
The Friars call for solidarity which “can mean encouraging tourism, holidays, trade without letting oneself be overcome by a policy of terror which instils unjustified fear and paralyses people in their own small world”.
“Solidarity – Miss Zambon says – means offering concrete help according to one’s possibilities, through that bridge which from Italy brings us offering safely and immediately: the Centro di Cooperazione Missionaria dei Frati Cappuccini Emiliani. Anyone who wants to support our work in Turkey may contact Friar Adriano Parenti, co-ordinator of missionary animation (e-mail: centromissionario@tin.it ) to know more about projects underway in Antioch. ”.
In the meantime people interested in visiting the region rich in memories, cross roads of peoples, cultures and religions should contact the mission at Antioch (e-mail: domenicobertogli@hotmail.com, mariagrazia@ttnet.net.tr) for an experience of faith and solidarity. (PA) (Fides Service 13/6/2003 lines 44 words 528)


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