We established İyilikhane as the "İyilikhane Association for Solidarity with Orphans" in Istanbul on February 2, 2014. We then decided to expand our focus to serve a broader spectrum of needs, including not only orphans but also children facing extreme hardships despite having living parents. Hence, we renamed our organization to Iyilikhane Association for Children in 2017.
The Bookmark Project is a movement of kindness which Iyilikhane emerged from. Launched at Boğaziçi University in 2011, our initiative quickly attracted thousands of students from numerous universities. Fueled by their active involvement, the project rapidly gained the support of volunteers of all ages. Within three years, our efforts bore significant fruit: we facilitated 21 cataract surgeries in Africa as our initial act. Following that, we gifted children our first permanent structure (Legacy Project) by building an orphanage for 46 children in Malawi, one of Africa's poorest countries, and a school for 360 students in Patani, southern Thailand. Additionally, we formed Rings of Kindness, uniting philanthropists to help fulfill the monthly needs of hundreds of orphans.
According to reports of non-governmental organisations, it is estimated that there are 400 million orphans and 300 thousand child soldiers in the world, 2.5 million children are kidnapped every year and three thousand children are forced into prostitution every day. And almost four million children are orphaned every year. This shows that more than 10 thousand children are orphaned daily. In a world where such statistics are spoken, children, and especially orphaned children, compose the most vulnerable group of social life. Therefore, in our projects we concentrate on children, specifically orphans and needy children who live with uncertainty day to day, to grant them immediate relief in their lives and, through our increasingly fruitful and regenerative works, growth towards hope in their futures.
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Our aim is to contribute to the smiles of orphans and children in need, support their financial, educational and psycho-social needs, and to facilitate expanding goodness from volunteers (by providing training and opportunities to act upon it) and from donors (by making it easy to collaborate in giving funds to our growing work).
· Conducting our activities with a steadfast commitment to reliability, transparency, and accountability.
· Focusing on people-centered work based on voluntary efforts, sacrifice, altruism, sincerity, compassion, and solidarity.
· Providing support to children in need based on objective evaluation criteria, regardless of language, religion, race, or gender.
· Ensuring donations reach the beneficiaries in the shortest time possible, in the most efficient way, and for the intended purpose.
· Guided by our principles, always acting with discipline and dynamism to spread kindness.
· Adopting professional volunteerism with a sense of responsibility.
· Leveraging expertise and knowledge across various disciplines.
· Establishing the association's activities as permanent, independent, and not tied to any individual or group, within the framework of core values, principles, and methods.
· Valuing experience sharing, innovative approaches, and consultation.
You can donate through our website’s online donation system. Alternatively, you can make a donation via wire transfer to the bank account numbers listed on our website. You can also set up an automatic payment on your credit card. Or, you can make a cash donation in person at the headquarters of Iyilikhane Association for Children. Please specify the purpose of your donation in the transaction description, and include your name, and mobile number, e.g., “GENERAL 05555555555 AYSE YILMAZ”, “ZAKAT 05555555555 ALI YILMAZ”
We don't accept in-kind donations except under special circumstances. For detailed information about in-kind donations, please contact our association within working hours, using the contact information on the Contact Us page.
No. İyilikhane Children's Association is an independent non-governmental organization with no affiliations to any community, party, institution, or organization.
You can select ‘zakat’ during our online donation process, mention 'zakat' as the reason for your bank transfer, or indicate your intention on our form when donating in person.
You can explore volunteering opportunities on our Volunteer page and fill out the Volunteer Application Form. Once you submit the form, we will contact you as soon as possible. You can also inquire about our volunteer activities by sending a message through our social media accounts, emailing [email protected], or calling +902128070709 within working hours.
You can follow our activities on our website www.iyilikhane.org.tr or through our social media accounts (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram: @iyilikhane).
Through the Child Sponsorship System, you can support the housing, education, health, clothing, and food needs of an orphan or a child in need with a monthly donation of 500 TL. Child Sponsorhip System also allows you to join a sponsorship with a monthly partial donation of 250 TL, jointly supporting an orphan or a child in need with other donors.
You can apply to sponsor an orphan or a child in need by filling out the Child Sponsorhip System Application Form, available on the Child Sponsorhip page, under the Activities menu.
Sponsorship begins once the donor's initial sponsorship donation reaches our association after filling out the Child Sponsorhip System Application Form. The details of the sponsored orphan or child in need will be emailed to the donor within a month of receiving the first donation. Relevant updates and progress reports will be provided to the donor a year later.
The minimum duration for sponsoring a child is one year. Donors can set up an automatic payment order for up to three years on our website and renew their sponsorship for as long as they wish after the term expires.
You can donate through our website’s online donation system. Alternatively, you can make a donation via wire transfer to the bank account numbers listed on our website. You can also set up an automatic payment on your credit card or contact us to have your donation automatically charged to your card every month. Additionally, you are welcome to make a cash donation in person at the headquarters of Iyilikhane Association for Children. Please specify the purpose of your donation as “RING” in the transaction description, and include your name, and mobile number, e.g., “RING 05555555555 AYSE YILMAZ”
We'll email you photos and basic information about the child you're sponsoring. However, to protect the child's safety and privacy, we do not disclose their address. Therefore, it is not possible for you to meet face-to-face with the child.
No. Adoption is a legal procedure that entails officially taking over guardianship of a child. On the other hand, sponsoring through the Child Sponsorship System is about offering financial support to a child, whether for a brief period or in the long term. Through this system, while we ensure the children's basic needs are covered, they continue to live with their own family or relatives. İyilikhane does not provide adoption services.
You can simply mention your interest in joining the shopping card distributions in the Notes section of the Volunteer Application Form on our website. Once you've submitted the form, feel free to call İyilikhane at +902128070709 during working hours to get more information.
No. At Iyilikhane, we work to bring smiles to the faces of all children in need, regardless of religion, language, race, or gender, wherever we can reach them. In Turkey, we primarily focus our aid activities in Istanbul, especially in the Fatih district, due to the proximity of our association's headquarters. Given the demographic makeup of our district, the majority of children we support are Syrian refugees who have sought asylum in our country from war.
We do not have branches outside our association headquarters in Fatih, Istanbul. Yet, volunteering from other cities may be possible. Volunteers from other cities can contact our association to find out what they can do.
Yes, you're welcome to notify us if they fall within our area of operation. Please be aware that we may not be able to respond immediately due to a high volume of inquiries.
We select children in need through a meticulous process that involves reviewing applications received by our association and gathering data from local authorities and schools. Our social service experts and volunteers conduct detailed social assessments by making home visits. Based on these evaluations, we identify children to assist using objective criteria, documenting the needs of each family and prioritizing aid distribution based on urgency. We periodically check on the children’s conditions through unannounced visits.
There's no age restriction for volunteering with us. İyilikhane warmly welcomes individuals of all ages, from the young to the senior ("From seven to seventy" as we say in Turkish).