SAN FRANCISCO — Bay Area entrepreneur and Muwekma Ohlone Tribe Chairwoman Charlene Nijmeh is leading relief efforts for victims of the recent earthquake in Türkiye.
Her nonprofit organization, Green Education Foundation, is set to deliver food, supplies and blankets to the towns and villages devastated by the 7.8-magnitude earthquake. Although her company, 7th Generation Recycling, was not affected by the earthquake, Nijmeh said some of her workers in Istanbul and their families lost loved ones in the disaster. Nijmeh is calling on the Bay Area to support humanitarian efforts in the country.
“We must move together to help provide aid to the people of Türkiye,” Nijmeh said in a statement. “My hope is that others in the Bay Area will join in the humanitarian cause of providing aid to the suffering people of Türkiye. The Bay Area is home to immense wealth and privilege, when we see needless suffering both at home and abroad we ought to do something about it.”
Nijmeh emphasized the importance of banding together to help those in need, drawing from her people’s history of surviving genocide and colonialism. She stressed the need to alleviate societal issues to ensure people are thriving, saying, “everywhere you look you can see needless suffering, people barely surviving, when we have the resources, truly, to alleviate these societal issues.”
