Turkey-Syria Earthquake: Online aid marketplace launched to speed up critical minutes of aid response

Local partner Field Ready will coordinate the platform locally, support rescue efforts and provide relief commodities and urgently needed medical Items.

As the death toll for the earthquake in Turkey reaches 36,000, online aid marketplace ‘Respondlocal’ is launching in Turkey to speed up the aid response and provide vital rescue airbags in the bid to free trapped residents from the rubble. The online platform, launched by tech start-up NeedsList in collaboration with Google.org, will allow local partners to post their needs and match with suppliers within just minutes, in a bid to hasten the aid response.

The UN believes the quake, which has killed over 36,000 and left thousands more critically injured and trapped, is tipping into a humanitarian crisis, unless vital food, supplies and medication arrive imminently.

The platform, which will be administered by local partner Field Ready, will enable local organisations to post their communities’ needs and have them matched by donors, large-scale non-profit organisations, and private sector companies; saving critical minutes and hours as the situation escalates.

In addition to running the platform, Field Ready already works in the area of Northwest Syria, and will continue creating and distributing insulation panels and floor insulation tiles to thousands of people to protect them from winter cold, which will be critical as temperatures plummet. The organisation will also deploy “rescue airbags” made from locally recovered and recycled materials (including deployed vehicle airbags) which can raise heavy debris and help free those trapped beneath a collapsed structure.

Field Ready Turkiye Lead, Emad Nasher, based in Gaziantep is hoping that hundreds of local organisations will join the platform in order to co-ordinate what has already become a complex emergency. Emad said,

“We have been in Turkey since 2016 and have never seen anything like this. It’s crucial we act quickly. Minutes cost lives. We need to be coordinated. I managed to get my wife and mother out just in time, but many have not been so lucky.”

Particularly important is the sign up of local and international donors and suppliers to the platform

Nasher continued “We are calling on all local grassroots organisations, donors and suppliers, whether big or small, to sign up to the platform — to post their needs and supplies, so we can get aid to those who need it most, in a swift, organised way.”

The platform has been tried and tested in humanitarian crises across the world, distributing more than $19 million in aid to more than 500,000 recipients in 25 countries, including supporting the resettlement of Afghan, Ukrainian, and Venezuelan refugees in the USA and providing locally produced COVID PPE to refugee health workers in Bangladesh, Iraq, Uganda, and Kenya. It also recently launched in Ukraine, enabling local partners to participate in a complex aid response.

The launch of the platform in Turkey will not only support the current emergency situation in Syria and Turkiye after the devastating earthquakes, but will be a long-term solution to coordination issues in Syria that has been embroiled in a decade-long war.

RespondLocal was recently upgraded for global deployment thanks to a $1M grant from Google.org, Google’s philanthropy, and a team of 7 Google.org Fellows — engineers, user experience designers and more — who strengthened security features, created dynamic translation across five languages, improved reporting, and streamlined access.

NeedsList CSO Kat Sellers “These are the critical days where we must harness the power of local organisations and support them. They provide the bedrock of response — networked, trusted and able to respond swiftly. We call on any organisation, regardless of size, whether national or international, to join us on the platform, so we can get the right aid to the right people, at the right time.”

To sign up please go to https://needslist.co/earthquake

Notes to Editors

• For more information please contact Kat Sellers at kat@needslist.co, Pride Ashaba at pride@needslist.co, or press@google.com to arrange an interview with Jen Carter, Global Head of Technology, Google.org
• To find out more about our work, visit our website www.needslist.co, or contact ben@needslist.co or kat@needslist.co
• Google.org brings the best of Google to help solve some of humanity’s biggest challenges — combining funding, innovation, and technical expertise to support underserved communities and provide an opportunity for everyone.www.Google.org
• NeedsList provides a virtual marketplace to match relief organisations responding to crises with grassroots organisations Enterprise Software for Crisis Relief | Needslist
• Field Ready brings manufacturing to challenging places by making urgently needed items, locally. For the past seven years, Field Ready has implemented a range of relief and reconstruction projects in the region and around the world. For more information,. contact Eric@fieldready.org