Frequently Asked Questions
We established İyilikhane in Istanbul under the name of “İyilikhane Orphan Solidarity Association” on February 2, 2014. However, we decided to continue our work at home and abroad with a more inclusive agenda to serve orphan children as well as needy children whose fathers are alive but living under very difficult conditions. Hence, we changed the name of our association to İyilikhane Association for Children in 2017.
It is a kindness movement that spreads the seeds of Iyilikhane.Thousands of students from dozens of universities participated in our project which started at Boğaziçi University in 2011.
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.
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).
· To carry out activities in accordance with the principles of reliability, transparency and accountability.
· To maintain person-oriented support work on the basis of voluntary contribution, self-sacrifice, altruism, sincerity, compassion and solidarity.
· To provide fair support to children in need, by using objective evaluation criteria, regardless of language, religion, race, location and gender.
· To convey donations to recipients in accordance with donors’ specific choices of support, in the shortest time and in the most efficient way.
· To always act in a disciplined and dynamic manner in order to spread the goodness that’s within the framework of principles.
· To adopt professional volunteering practices with responsibility.
· To benefit from expertise and different disciplines.
· To make the activities of the association permanent and independent, within the framework of the basic values, principles and methods developed, regardless of individuals and groups.
· To research, consult with and learn from experiences of other organisations as we plan, review and innovate our practices.
You can make a donation
· on our website using the online donation system
· via remittance/EFT to the bank account numbers on our website
· through automatic payment order with your credit card
· by coming to İyilikhane Association for Children centre to donate cash
Please enter your donation purpose, name and mobile number in the explanation section for all these donation methods. For example: "GENERAL 05555555555 AYSE YILMAZ " "Zakat 05555555555 ALI YILMAZ”.
We don't accept donations in kind except under special circumstances. For detailed information about this, you can contact our association using information in the Communication Section during working hours.
No. İyilikhane Association for Children is an independent non-governmental organisation. It has no affiliation with any congregation, party, institution or formation.
When making your donation (online, bank, by hand), please clarify your donation as zakat in the relevant space provided (by selecting ‘zakat’ during our online donation process, by naming ‘zakat’ as your reason for bank transfer or stating this upon our form at the office).
Thank you for your interest in İyilikhane, and your intention to support orphans and children in need. Please review our volunteer opportunities on the Volunteering page and fill out the Volunteer Application Form. We will contact you as soon as possible upon receipt of your completed Volunteer Application Form.
You can access more information about our volunteer opportunities by messaging our social media accounts (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram: @iyilikhane), by sending an email to our email address [email protected] or by calling our 02128070709 phone number during working hours.
You can follow activities of our association on our website www.iyilikhane.org.tr or on our social media accounts (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram: @iyilikhane).
With Orphan Sponsorship Rings, you can support an orphan's housing, education, health, clothing and food needs with ?125 a month. Moreover, instead of donating ?125 all by yourself, you can also participate in a ring that we organise by making a monthly donation of ?10, ?20, ?30 or ?50 to support an orphan.
You can apply to sponsor an orphan by filling out our Orphan Sponsorship Application Form. You can find the Orphan Sponsorship Application Form on the Activities menu, Orphan Sponsorship Rings page.
Orphan Sponsorship begins when the benefactor delivers the first sponsorship donation to our association after filling out the Orphan Sponsorship Application Form. The information of the sponsored orphan child will be emailed to the benefactor no later than one month after the first donation is received by our association. Annual feedback reports will be emailed to the benefactor so they can see exactly how their support is enabling improvements for the sponsored child.
You must commit to regularly providing support to an orphan for a period of at least one year. However, if you cannot give a one year commitment, you can still support an orphan for six months, three months or with a one-time donation.
You can make a donation on our website using the online donation system. You can send your donation via remittance/EFT to the bank account numbers on our website. You can give an automatic payment order with your credit card. You can contact us to have your donation automatically transferred from your credit card to our association. You can come to the İyilikhane Association for Children centre and donate cash by hand. Please state your donation purpose in the explanation section of the bank transactions with the phrase “HALKA” and remember to enter your mobile phone number and name. For example: "HALKA 05555555555 AYSE YILMAZ".
We share photos and basic information about the orphan you are sponsoring via email. However, we do not share their address to protect the child's safety and privacy. Therefore it is not possible for you to meet face-to-face with the child.
No. Adoption is a legal procedure; adopting a child means the official custody of the child. Sponsorship means providing financial assistance to a child on a short or long term basis. Through the sponsorship system, the child stays with his or her family or relatives while certain basic needs of the child are met by the sponsors. We don't have any work on adoption at İyilikhane.
When you fill out the Volunteer Application Form on our website, indicate that you want to participate in food card distribution. After filling out the Volunteer Application Form, you can get detailed information by calling İyilikhane on 02128070709 during working hours.
No. At İyilikhane, we work to support the smiles of all the children in need we can reach, regardless of language, religion, race, location and gender. We maintain our domestic aid works mostly in Istanbul (especially in the district of Fatih) due to the location of our association headquarters. Because of the demographic structure of the district we are in, the majority of the children we deliver aid to are our Syrian brothers and sisters who have fled the war and sought refuge in our country.
We only have an office at our association center in Fatih, Istanbul. Yet, voluntary work from other cities may be possible. You can contact our association to find out in detail what you can do for our works.
You can report it if it is within our field of study. However, due to the high amount of applications, we may not be able to immediately answer these requests.
Subsequent to the applications made to our association and the information we have obtained from schools and local authorities, we make visits house to house with our social workers and volunteers. As a result of our social review visits, we determine the children who will be supported according to objective criteria. We report the needs of all families and deliver assistance according to the urgency of need. We monitor the condition of supported children with visits from time to time.
At İyilikhane, our door is open to everyone 'from seven to seventy'. This Turkish phrase means 'no age limit'.