10 March 2025: We have a team on the ground in the Middle East training and equipping people to build transitional shelters for all of the peoples having to move around the Middle East and Turkey currently and definitely increasing through this summer. This video shows a sped up version of a shelter build.

In the next few months we expect to see many people moving back to Syria or out of Syria and needing help with shelters. Each shelter costs between $1,200 to $1,600. We are gearing up to be ready to respond to needs in the region and are looking for funds to cover around 50 shelters to start with. The work is in partnership with like-minded locals or teams with an eye towards long-term engagement with the communities.

2 October 2023: Millennium field partners are working to meet the immense mental health needs of relief workers responding to the earthquake crisis. A temporary trauma center has been set up in Marrakech, where trained counselors offer free trauma debrief and counseling services to relief workers, and to both children and adults in the English-speaking community. After mid-October, services will continue to be offered in a coastal city by one or two providers at a time, as funding allows.

The temporary center is housed in a villa that has rooms for counseling, a resource center, and a welcoming space for those needing a safe place to rest and process. The center is also providing housing and meals for relief workers and those who lost their homes in the earthquake.

21 September 2023: Ilk Umut Dernegi (First Hope Association), a Millennium partner in Turkey, has sent a team to Morocco to provide emergency aid to villages in the mountainous areas, where the earthquake caused severe damage and destruction. They share with government officials, and local and international organizations, their knowledge from the recent devastating earthquakes in their own country. They are assessing the needs of families and preparing to distribute essential items and provide temporary shelter.

13 September 2023: A powerful earthquake of 6.8 magnitude hit Morocco’s High Atlas mountain range on Friday, September 8. The epicenter was roughly 43.5 miles south of its fourth largest city, Marrakech. Witnesses say that some communities have been completely destroyed and the latest estimates report nearly 3,000 people killed and over 2,500 Injured at this time.

Millennium’s local partners have begun organizing emergency supplies and will be supporting shelter and clean water distribution to survivors in these difficult to reach mountain communities.