Leading Turkish actors have collected $6 billion for the earthquake victims of Turkey and Syria in a live telethon organized to collect donations.
The fundraising campaign was jointly organized by eight Turkish national TV channels and the participation of numerous Turkish TV celebrities. These celebrities answered the calls of the donors calling in the live transmission to donate in the campaign titled “Türkiye One Heart” (”Türkiye Tek Yürek”). The channels ATV, FOX, Kanal D, Kanal 7, Show TV, Star TV, TRT 1, and TV8 ran a live joint broadcast on Wednesday.
The campaign managed to collect TL 115 $6.1 billion (115.1 billion Turkish liras). More than nine million texts of donations were sent at the same time.
Eight Turkish TV channels air joint broadcast for aid campaign to help millions of people affected by #TurkiyeQuakes and reconstruct devastated cities pic.twitter.com/5pQKmgkt8Z
— TRT World (@trtworld) February 15, 2023
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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan also took part in the telethon and said that every penny collected from the campaign will be used for the rehabilitation of the earthquake survivors and victims. “We aim to provide shelters where our people can live safely and peacefully in place of every demolished building within a year. I hope we will overcome this test together,” he said.
Not only TV artists but leading Turkish celebrities from sports, business, and other fields of arts also took part in the fundraising campaign.
Famous faces taking part in the campaign were Burak Özçivit, Hande Erçel, Engin Akyürek, Afra Saraçoğlu, Burak Deniz, Alp Navruz, Aslı Enver, Merve Dizdar, Barış Falay, Selahattin Paşalı, Özge Özpirinçci, Uğur Güneş, Murat Yıldırım, Mehmet Özgür, Birkan Sokullu, Eda Ece, Melisa Aslı Pamuk, Ismail Hacıoğlu, Kadir Doğulu and his wife Neslihan Atagül Doğulu, Seda Sayan, Hasan Can Kaya, Aras Bulut Iynemli, Ezgi Mola and Halit Ergenç.
Turkish celebrities urged people to donate wholeheartedly to the Turkish Disaster Management Agency and Turkish Red Crescent for the aid drive.
More than 44,000 people have been killed in the devastating earthquake in Turkey and Syria.