Portable Toilet Project
A Message From Istanbul, Turkey
I need your support to provide "portable toilets" for Turkish people who lost everything they own during the recent earthquake in Turkey.
My brother Onder Erturer has volunteered his time to design a 10 unit toilet to be used in the disaster areas. He has completed the preliminary cost estimation. A 10 unit portable toilet will cost around $4,500 and an additional $1,500 will make it possible for us to put the unit in its place and provide water etc. and cover any unexpected cost that might occur. The design process started yesterday (August 23, 1999), and a draft is ready for your review (designed by Onder Erturer and drafted by my nephew Mert Erturer). I provided the seed money ($1,000) to start the manufacturing process tomorrow (August 24, 1999). The unit will be manufactured in Izmir under the supervision of my brother and will be transferred to one the earthquake areas.
We are determined to install this unit by September 4, 1999. I will be there to document the installation to prepare a report after my return to United States on September 5, 1999.
What do I need from you?
My dear friends Ervin family will donate $1,000 and the rest is up to you. I am hoping that you will be supportive of this project and share the happiness that I feel since I started working on this project. I can be reached at 0-532-325-9756 (August 25-30) or 0-212-269-2727 (August 31-Sept.4). The country code for Turkey is 90. My e-mail address is salpteki@calpoly.edu. If you want to participate, send me an e-mail with the amount of your support. I will go ahead and charge it to my credit card and collect it from you after my return to US. ). I will be at my US address which is shown below after September 6, 1999.
There is a need for portable toilets in the earthquake area. If you prefer to purchase stand-alone PVC portable toilets, you may want to contact Hasel C.P.T. at 212-868-2652 (fax 212-868-2663). I visited this company on August 24th to evaluate our decision. Each unit costs around $1,000. Several of them should be connected to an external water tank and an external septic tank should also be prepared for these units to be operational. This could be an alternative project if any one of you is interested in organizing a similar fundraising effort. I decided to go with the design/manufacture option since I am an engineer and I have access to great engineers, engineering students, and web page developers in my family. If we end up raising more than what we need for the initial 10 unit, additional units could easily be fabricated and installed. All we need is your financial support.
Result
Thank you for your support my friends. We made it.
Click here to see the real pictures of the toilet.
Donors
- Ervin Family ($1,000)
- Ayse and Selcuk Gezdur ($1,000)
- Drs. Nilgun and John Sharpe ($1,000)
- Dr. Lidwina Genowitch-Unterberger, Dr. Michaela Oezelsel-Heymann, Prof. Jan-Peter Jantzen, Dr. Dieter
Hofmann, Sevin Ulukut, Frederic Lundgreen, Eri Alfandari, Christoph Sommer, Angelika Lager and Colin Durkop (DM 3,900) - and myself ($1,000)
Thank You
Sema E. Alptekin, Ph.D
Professor and Chair
