Paris man is stationed in Istanbul, Turkey with Operation Orphan’s Crisis Response Team

By CasandraTurnbull

A Paris man is in Istanbul right now aiding with rescue and recovery efforts following a major earthquake that rocked Turkey and parts of Syria in the early hours of February 6th . Logan Barrett is with Operation Orphan, a humanitarian group based in the United Kingdom. He’s part of the Crisis Response Team whose responsibilities will be to protect vulnerable children who could be displaced, separated from family, or orphaned following the devastating earthquake that registered magnitudes of 7.8 and 7.5 on the Richter scale and has claimed the lives of over 41,000people

Last Sunday, before he left Paris, Barrett spoke with The Paris Independent He shared that the Crisis Response Team will coordinate with Turkish authorities in Istanbul, then travel into the earthquake zone by local transportation. The team consists of a disaster response leader, two specialist firefighters / search & rescue technicians, one doctor, one medic and one police detective specializing in child exploitation and trafficking

Barrett, who’s lived in Paris most of his life, is a County of Brant Firefighter based out of the Paris Station. He’s the only Canadian on the team. He had to complete a four-day trial period in 2018 to test his strength and endurance through a variety of challenges from hiking to survival tactics and medical administration, to join Operation Orphan. His first deployment was last March when the Crisis Response Team was sent to Moldova following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Operation Orphan operates globally, where the need is the greatest. The primary goal is always to identify, make safe and keep children safe, usually in instances of extreme poverty or natural disaster crisis situations.

“We set them up (Children) with proper accommodation and medical care,” Barrett explained. “We will be working with family services in Turkey. Once we can identify children, we make sure they end up in a safe place ”

Following natural disasters like this one centred in Turkey’s southeastern Kahramanmaras province, there’s lots of chaos as people struggle to come to terms with what happened, while racing against the clock to find victims buried under the rubble. Inside that anarchy and confusion are opportunists who look to exploit children for the primary purpose of human trafficking. Operation Orphan is there to protect the most innocent victims. While doing so, they also “set up logistics and base operations ”

By initiating roots on the frontline, additional Operation Orphan crews can cycle in shifts, bringing in new sets of specialized skills, such as social service workers, said Barrett. Operation Orphan’s core operational costs are funded by financial backers from the UK. When they deploy, the operate in an agile, lean and efficient way in the field to ensure that 100% of individual donations reach orphans.

“We will not have any lodging or logistic support while in the earthquake zone and the team will need to be totally self sufficient,” said Barrett, who will remain in Turkey for about 10 days “These operations cost quite a bit of money. If you are able to spread this link throughout your network, it would be greatly appreciated,” said Barrett referring to the Operation Orphan donation portalhttps://www operationorphan.org/.../massiveearthquakes...

You can learn more about Operation Orphan online https://www.operationorphan.org/about-us-vision