Mustafa Alt, who lives with his mother in the Çayyaka village in this district, began to make spinning tops in a small workshop beside his home when he was deeply saddened by a child from Afrin he saw crying on the television. Alt, who painted the spinning tops he made with great care in various colors, delivered these to officials of the Kastamonu IHH Humanitarian Relief Organization to be sent to Afrin.
Mustafa Alt said he earns a living by selling various wooden objects he makes in the small workshop beside his house in the village. Alt, who pointed out that no Muslim should go to bed full while his Muslim neighbor is hungry, said “My conditions are sufficient. I am sitting at home. I go to the mosque to pray and am able to fill my stomach. What are those children supposed to do? They don’t even have a home to live in, not to mention other things. If I do not try to understand what those children and people are suffering, then I am not a Muslim.”
Alt, who said he wanted to help the children of Afrin, said “I do not have money to send. I am not a soldier so I can go and rescue them. As I thought what I could do for these children, with the means available I decided to make spinning tops to make them happy.” Explaining that he collected the materials for these spinning tops from people he knew, Mustafa Alt said it took him a month to complete a thousand spinning tops. Saying that he usually sold these spinning tops for 5TL each, he added “A thousand of these toys comes to 5 thousand lira, but this would not make me rich, and I am earning a living here in one way or another. So will I go hungry if I donate these to those poor children? I did this for the sake of Allah.”
Emphasizing that he wanted these children to be happy, Alt said “I donated these spinning tops to my Muslim brothers and sisters. Unfortunately they do not have the means to purchase toys. In fact, they have nothing, no mother, father, home, village or family. If these children smile even for a moment when they are given these spinning tops, that is enough for me.”
“Suffering children will smile because of generous people”
Explaining that Mustafa Alt called him and said that he had made spinning tops for the children, Mucahit Dağdelenoğlu, Chairman of IHH in Kastamonu said “Mustafa Alt told me ‘I have made spinning tops for the sad, crying children who are the victims of war in this aggrieved geography, can you deliver them to the children?’ So we accepted the spinning tops telling him that we would deliver these to our orphan brothers and sisters in Afrin.” Emphasizing that the Anatolians are extremely generous people, Dağdelenoğlu continued:
“Here, we see that although people in the Anatolian region may be poor, they are certainly generous. Totally disregarding his own financial difficulties, we see that he made it his concern to make the children of people that were killed by the Syrian regime happy. What makes us a community is supporting the oppressed, those who are suffering, realizing that our true wealth is our generosity. It pleases us immensely to be able to contribute to our brother from Cide bringing a smile to the faces of the children in Afrin. Suffering children will smile because of generous people like Mustafa Alt. We will deliver his gifts to these children in Afrin as soon as possible.”
