Frequently Asked Questions

In 2011, two people from The Gambia came to visit Community Volunteers Foundation. They stated that they are coming from an organization working for women’s development and child care in The Gambia and they want to collaborate with TOG. Coincidentally, İbrahim Betil was there, and he wanted to visit The Gambia to get introduced to local people and to understand the expectations for a potential collaboration. He went there two months later; after seeing the situation of the Gambians and living in their villages for a week, he came back to meet his friends. They had to make a choice: They could either to ignore the situation and leave them alone, or develop projects to contribute to humanity in a world where 1 billion people are fighting against poverty and lack of water. They took on the second one and decided to establish an association to support sustainable development projects in the least developed countries. SEN DE GEL was founded in 2012. Poverty has different meanings in Turkey and Africa. Poor people in Turkey often have access to free healthcare, primary education, soup kitchens, elders’ home, government/ municipality funds, heating aid and many official and private support organizations. Above all, there is a strong Anatolian culture. For refugees, there is monthly salary, tent cities, free education and exam-free university rights given by government. There is none of them in The Gambia. There is even no clean water to drink. Lack of water at peak, dirty drinking water is the main reason for child deaths. (If people are asking this question really to understand the situation, we suggest them to use only one tap to meet all their needs related to water.

SEN DE GEL is not an “aid” organization. We aim listen to people of the least developed countries and work to maintain sustainable projects to ignite their potential to meet their needs. SEN DE GEL tries to provide an up-t-date, realistic dimension and a good solution to underdevelopment and poverty through every possible mean. Our priority is people’s basic needs.

We have corporate and individual supporters / donors. Among the big donor organizations are TİKA, The Coca Cola Foundation, UNDP, and Mogul Textile. In addition to those, there are many organizations and individuals donating little amounts. You can find the names of these people and organizations on our website.

The country to be supported needs to be one of the least developed countries according to UN. The second criterion is making sure that a trusted NGO from that country applies to us for collaboration with their own will. When this first two criteria are met, the country is visited, meetings are held with local communities in villages, and high potential impactful local development projects are identified collaboratively.

We don’t have a political inclination. We aim to support humanitarian development projects without regard to any discrimination based on belief, ethnicity or ideology. As a non governemental organization, we cooperate with individuals, private sector, governments and international organizations; however we don’t work on anything that is not within our aims.

A project coordinator goes to the field and lives there at least for 6 months to monitor the projects. That is how we ensure that projects are taking place and all contributions are used for project aims.

The association does not have any administrative costs. All expenses related to office rent, bills, stationary, web services and updates, prints, cargo, etc. are met thanks to the efforts of our volunteers. All income goes directly to project activities. We only cover the housing, food, transportation, and communication expenses of our volunteer.

We send reports to our donors and members on how their contributions are used through quarterly reports. In this reports, we also share personal stories of project beneficiaries.

We send reports to our donors and members on how their contributions are used through quarterly reports. In this reports, we also share personal stories of project beneficiaries.

All of our meetings, General Assembly, Board Meetings are open to everyone who wants to know about the association. You can learn the time, date, and place of the meeting from Ms. Ebru Çelebi by calling 0216 465 39 41.

We are a group of volunteer, responsible people who believe that we can make change in the world by touching the lives of people. Our association is open to membership and participation of everyone who share the same belief. We would be delighted and honored to have you on board, as well.

We expect individuals to become members to the association, to find new members from their networks, and to look for contributions from other individuals and organizations.