The Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TİKA), a state-run institution known for development aid and charity work across the world, is reaching out to disabled communities in foreign countries. TİKA offers help in 50 countries, furnishing care centers for the disabled and delivering hearing devices for people with hearing impairments, as well as wheelchairs and education materials for the disabled.
TİKA President Serdar Çam said disadvantaged groups are prioritized.
Among the countries receiving aid from TİKA are Albania, Azerbaijan, Mongolia, Turkmenistan, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Ghana, Senegal Ethiopia, Palestinian territories, Iraq, Ecuador, Hungary and Sudan.
Previously a little-known state apparatus founded with the purpose of helping former Soviet republics after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the state-run Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TİKA) re-branded itself in the past decade as a major source for Turkey's international clout in helping other countries develop and by reaching out to people in need across the globe.
TİKA is active in 50 countries where it has offices, but has conducted projects in 140 countries, especially after a revival of its work under the Justice and Development Party (AK Party), which has been in power since 2002.
The agency's latest aid campaign was in Ghana where 80 children between the ages of five and 12 were given hearing aids earlier this month by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's wife Emine Erdoğan.
