F U T Humanitarian Support Goods from Japanese Lions

Akashi Futami , Akashi Uozumi Lions Clubs of 335-A and Osaka Tezukayama Lions Club of 335-B has made a giant contribution to the earthquake victims in Turkey. They called this activity FUT , following the capitals of the organizing clubs.  ( Please see in the enclosed set of pictures how they realized collecting and packing one 40 ft container full of humanitarian support goods .)

The container left Kobe on October 12th  and arrived at Turkey end of November .  

Receiving any goods from abroad by the private institutions or NGOs was forbidden by the Turkish Government to , so we had them sent to the Navy Headquarters which was the center of the eq .  

The container was first disloaded in a government depot responsible for the eq materials. We could watch this disloading by a Club President and an authority from the Navy . Please see file 2 pictures of this disloading  

Then we had to bring the responsible people from the government, the navy and the lions to organize the distribution . Certainly local lions should be involved and after the eq , they were indeed scattered all around. Most had lost their homes, offices, some family members and we even lost 6 Lion members ...  

The tent villages , schools and prefabricated settlements were made mostly on the hills and mountains to protect from new eq s. So when heavy snowy winter started we had to wait again to realize the distribution ..  

Eventually, all pieces got together and on March 9th , the navy people, the government supervisor , local lion club presidents and members , İstanbul lions could get together and operation started.  

The boxes loaded in two trucks following us, we started visiting eq villages .  

Please find in the following files some pictures of this day .... Much more will come , so please look into this page in near future again ...  

The boxes were full of everything.... Stationary , toys, towels, blankets, outfits, soaps, toothbrushes, pastes, toilet papers, baby food , tissue paper, cleaning material, life jackets, plastic swimming pools .. anything you can imagine that could be necessary ... even more..

And they were so caringly classified, packed and marked.. The box labels read all necessary info needed.. Each item cried out care, love and attention ..  

AND 2 Message Boxes... Messages of hundreds of children of Japan.... Heart warming , friendship , sympathy messages hand written IN TURKISH .. coloured with drawings .. some had real pictures of the messager .. posters, cards, letters...

All lions and those who were there burst into tears when we saw this treasure..  

Those messages were taken care specially and will be distributed to children and messages back will be collected .. Then sent to their sisters and brothers in Japan...  

On a short day, we could only take a few messages back , please see in the message file  

Dear Lions of the World..  

What FUT Lions did must be the most wonderful international humanitarian service the lions realized . We , the Turkish lions do not know how to thank...

It is our obligation to announce this event to the whole world and we will do..

There will be a lot of news and pictures on this page , as well as sent to everywhere we can revolving around the FUT Humanitarian Support Goods    

N.Lermioğlu MD 118 Secretary

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