In keeping with its traditional humanitarian gesture at deepening safety of lives across its countries of operations, Turkish Airlines, has granted official consent for carriage of 200-tons of aid for the next six months to support the call to tackle hunger and drought in Somalia.
The gesture followed Airline’s listening to a humanitarian aid campaign that began on social media by a French social media star, Jerome Jarre, calling Turkish Airlines, as the only airline that flies to Somalia, to use its global network and reputation for hospitality to help the people of Somalia.
Jarre, with over 1.3 million followers on Twitter, drew attention to the hunger and drought in Somalia with his video, viewed 2.5 million times, calling for Turkish Airlines’ help with the hashtag #TurkishAirlinesHelpSomalia, on Wednesday, March 15.
Following the call for action, high-profile Twitter accounts including Hollywood star, Ben Stiller, added their voices to the call for Turkish Airlines to support the campaign.
The #TurkishAirlinesHelpSomalia campaign was immediately noticed and followed closely by Turkish Airlines’ Directorate.
“Within the hour, we had contacted Jerome by telephone,” says the Turkish Airlines. The airline has worked with the popular French YouTuber in previous years on past digital projects.
After responding that Turkish Airlines would like to answer their call quickly, Jerome and five other friends from New York created content with the hashtag #TurkishAirlinesHelpSomalia, and then, another hashtag #LoveArmyforSomalia
The team of six had a network of more than 10 million followers and a primary purpose to raise social awareness globally, with their supporters snowballing in a few days to generate 1.3 billion potential views around the world, raising awareness about the situation in Somalia.
Following the developments, Turkish Airlines got involved in the project with its post: “We love Somalia. We got the call for this meaningful flight” on Thursday, March 16 on its local and global Twitter accounts.
On Friday, March 17 – within two days of the start of the #TurkishAirlinesHelpSomalia hashtag and following the granting of official consent to support Somalia, Turkish Airlines has engaged in transportation of the first 60-ton aid by a cargo flight dedicated to the campaign.
Turkish Airlines announced via video captioned: “Ready for take-off to help Somalia” on its Twitter and Facebook accounts.
The social media stars, following Turkish Airlines’ commitment to fly aid to Somalia, launched a financial support campaign on “gofundme.com” to raise funds for the basic needs of people of Somalia.
With the goal of $2 million, the campaign has raised $1.8 million from 66,000 donors in just three days while many have said that reaching millions of people in just a few days, the humanitarian aid campaign will provide contributions to Somalia.
