Lilas Jawish is a busy woman. The 19-year-old Istanbul resident is a full-time dental school student, and she sponsors her old high school’s robotics club. Three days a week, Jawish volunteers translation services to her local food bank.

She and her family also shop at that same food bank, called the Social Market. It’s run by an organization called the Refugees Association, in partnership with TIDER Basic Needs Association.

The Jawish family is originally from Aleppo, Syria, but they’ve lived in Istanbul for six years after fleeing the war. When conflict began in Syria, they hadn’t wanted to leave their home. “But suddenly, the government took my father to question him,” Jawish said. “They kept him for three months. [It turned out], they had the wrong name, the wrong paperwork, something.”

When her father came home, he said he wouldn’t stay in Syria another minute.

For three months in 2019, the Jawishes walked from Aleppo, through mountainous terrain, to Syria’s border with Türkiye. Lilas Jawish was only 13.

“The most difficult part was leaving my toys,” she said. “I had a big Barbie house. It was hard to leave it.

“We tried to take lots of things with us, but we had to leave most of it on the way. It was hard to carry heavy things. We were trying to bring at least our clothes, but we couldn’t.”

After crossing the border, government officials moved the family to Mersin, then Istanbul, where they applied for refugee status. They’ve lived in Istanbul’s Sultanbeyli Municipality ever since.

“On the way to Türkiye, we had really hard times,” Jawish said. “Then in Istanbul, at the beginning, it was very hard. I couldn’t speak Turkish. I had a new life, a new school. I experienced discrimination from students, even teachers.

“I was just a child.”

Social Market Promotes Dignity, Choice

Türkiye is currently home to 3.2 million registered Syrian refugees, which accounts for nearly 10% of the world’s people who are displaced across borders. About half a million of Syrian refugees live in Istanbul, with as many as 23,000 living in Sultanbeyli.

The Refugees Association was established in 2014, when Syrians first started relocating en masse to Sultanbeyli. The nonprofit provides a suite of services — in the areas of health, education, legal protection, livelihoods — to help families like the Jawishes build new lives.

One of the core services they offer to families struggling economically is food. For a time, the organization would receive food boxes from a generous corporate donor then distribute them. But something wasn’t working.

“When we gave them boxes of food, it wasn’t useful for them,” said Yusuf Tahacan, the director of administrative affairs at the Refugees Association. Tahacan said that some of the food wasn’t culturally appropriate for families, and some key staples were missing.

At the beginning of the pandemic, the need for food assistance in Sultanbeyli rose significantly. Tahacan and his colleagues decided they needed to start a food bank, but they didn’t know how. After searching online, they contacted TIDER, a member of The Global FoodBanking Network. TIDER supports its own network of food banks that serve more than 1 million people in 40 cities across Türkiye.

TIDER staff cocreated the Sultanbeyli Support Market with the Refugees Association and provided food and hygiene projects to the food bank until it became self-sufficient.

Each food bank in TIDER’s network, including the one in Sultanbeyli, is set up like a grocery store, giving patrons a wide variety of food, cleaning and hygiene products. This allows people to choose the products they like or need best.

“I see a psychological difference [now],” said Selman Demir, who is in charge of Social Market logistics. “People like to come here and have a normal shopping experience as a family.”

Food Assistance Opens Doors to Education, Opportunity

For the Refugees Association, the Social Market is usually the initial draw for struggling families in Sultanbeyli. But once they become regulars, they’re introduced to the other services the organization offers.

Jawish and her family started shopping at the Social Market in October 2024. Shortly after, Lilas Jawish received a scholarship from the Refugees Association that allowed her to attend university. The nonprofit is also providing workshop space for Jawish’s robotics club — which gives the group a dedicated area to focus on preparing for their upcoming competition that focuses on underwater systems.

“If there were no support from this association and the food bank, I would have to leave my school to support my family’s basic needs,” Jawish said.

But with the support of the Refugees Association and TIDER, Jawish is looking to the future. She is diligently working toward graduation and starting a career, learning English, and hoping her robotics team brings home a competition win. Even though things have changed in Syria recently, the future she sees is in Türkiye.

“My family would really love to go back to Syria, but we know that it’s very hard,” Jawish said. “We don’t know about the situation there.

“I was just 10 years old when the war began. I just remember the war. So, I can say, I love Türkiye more. I cannot identify myself as Turkish, but I feel like I belong here.”

Jawish also sees a future where she continues to volunteer at the Refugees Association, providing essential translation between Arabic and Turkish.

“I share the happiness of giving and taking,” she said, of her involvement with the organization. “I’m giving my time and my energy, so it makes me very happy.”