As GEA Search and Rescue team, we attend to the rescue operations of survivors under wrecks in disasters all around the world as volunteers since 1994.

Big demolitions in disasters from İndia to El Salvador, from Nepal to Haiti… People losing their families and being apart from their homes… Ruins taking place because of human mistakes hurt so much more. Wars and ruins we live confirm the saying that man is the worm of man.

Processes of recovering and getting back to normal life again after disasters have much importance. A person rescued from the disaster alive is not enough, what about him and his relatives? What is needed for not to leave their home? What must be done? Why do people leave their own cities and become immigrants even if their fundemantal needs such as security, food, job, acommodation are maintained?

Destruction of cultural heritage that remind the survivors their origin and bind them to that place and taking place of big migrations… Breaking the bond between the symbol that the survivor salutes every morning, collapsing the temple in which he worships, not seeing the image which reminds him the mental and spiritual wholeness, not having that water which is a fountain of purification make him think that he has no reason to stay there any more and it grows bigger and bigger everday until it becomes like a scream in his inner world. So he has no reason to stay there.

Maybe man doesn’t live where he was born or where he works for a living. There is an other option, maybe he lives where it means something to him.

We think that 9th. International Eskişehir Cartoon Festival will have an important role in emphasizing and protecting World Heritage. Thanks to all artists, people, foundations who corraborated…

Umut DİNÇŞAHİN
Gea Search and Rescue Group Coordinator