by Burak Akinci
ANKARA, May 8 (Xinhua) -- Amid rising unemployment and weakening economy, Turks are volunteering to pay utility bills for people in need, in an example of solidarity in times of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The metropolitan municipality of Istanbul, the nation's biggest city of over 16 million and also the worst-hit city by the novel coronavirus, launched this week a unique campaign "bill on the hook" where good samaritans are called to pay residents outstanding utility bills.
The campaign aims to provide support for people financially burdened by the coronavirus pandemic. Through askidafatura.ibb.gov.tr, the campaign anonymously matched people with bills with those willing to cover the cost of these bills out of an act of pure solidarity.
The process is simple; you log to the site and choose sither post bill or pay bill. If you choose to pay, there are unpaid debts, some cheap, some costly.
At the end of two days, the campaign generated over 1 million U.S. dollars and helped 57,177 households in Istanbul pay for their water and gas bills, the municipality announced on Thursday evening.
"In Istanbul, millions of people whose livelihoods depend on precarious work have been unable to find jobs for nearly 2 months. Life is getting harder by the day. This situation shows us that we need to strengthen our solidarity," mayor Emrem Imamoglu said on Twitter.
The campaign borrows its name from a longstanding Turkish tradition that dates back centuries, whereby a person would go to a bakery and pay for two loaves of bread instead of one, telling the baker that the other loaf will be "on the hook," meaning that a person in need may take it.
This extra contribution would then be held alongside others, and when people unable to afford bread would come in throughout the day and ask "Is there bread on the hook?", they would be able to get a loaf of bread for free. This way, the person paying for the extra bread on the hook would be paying it forward.
One of those benefactors told Xinhua that "It is only natural to help people in need in these difficult times."
"I closed temporarily my business because of the virus outbreak, but I also have some savings that I wanted to share with people who are in dire straits because they are possibly unable to work and provide for their families," said Rafet to Xinhua, asking specifically to be remained anonymous.
In capital Ankara and several big cities across the country, a similar but a bit different method is in place since the start of the outbreak where good samaritans and well-off business owners are called by municipality's to clear outstanding grocery bills of poor people.
In impoverished neighborhoods, several hundreds of outstanding grocery bills have been paid by modern day Robin Hood's amid rising concerns for Turkey's vulnerable economy which was slowly recovering from a recession when the outbreak began.
In western Nazilli city, a benefactor cleared outstanding bills of 18 families totaling an amount of 3,000 U.S. dollars, newspapers reported.
"Someone came and asked me to show him the notebook where I record customers' debts," Murat Halal, the owner of the grocery shop told T24 news site.
"There were 18 families with large amounts outstanding and he payed all the debt and asked me afterwards to burn my notebook, which I gladly did," Halal said.
Turkey has reported over 133,000 cases of COVID-19 and 3,641 deaths.
Food and essential good prices have soared since the start of the year and the coronavirus outbreak makes things worse for most households in Turkey where unemployment is rising due to weakening economic indicators and the lockdown imposed to curb the spread of the virus. Enditem
