The IKEA Foundation Commits €10 Million to Provide Emergency Assistance in Türkiye and Northern Syria
8.2.2023 15:50:00 EET | Business Wire | Press release
The donation will go to Médecins Sans Frontières’ (MSF) emergency fund to provide life saving care where medical needs are the greatest. This will support the delivery of essential aid, including medical assistance, psychological support and healthcare services to those most impacted by the devastating earthquake.
This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230208005519/en/
Image credit: Médecins Sans Frontières, Photographer: Omar Haj Kadour (Photo: Business Wire)
The IKEA Foundation is also speaking with other partners who are operating in the region. These partners are coordinating with Turkish authorities to understand further needs and opportunities to provide additional assistance. This includes discussions with Better Shelter, looking at ways to provide modular temporary housing units in Türkiye and Syria.
Per Heggenes, CEO of the IKEA Foundation, said: “We are deeply saddened by the devastation and loss of life in Türkiye and northern Syria following Monday’s earthquakes and especially by the impact on children and their families. Our hearts and thoughts go out to all those who are affected. I call on the world’s governments, businesses, and philanthropies to join us in the relief support for Türkiye and northern Syria.”
The 7.8 magnitude earthquake has so far left at least 7,800 people dead and caused widespread destruction, leaving millions of people wounded and without access to basic healthcare or shelter. Health facilities in the region are facing immense pressure and have limited staff and supplies. Many hospitals are experiencing acute shortages because of high demand to meet the needs of many patients. The situation is particularly acute in northern Syria, where more than 4 million people were already relying on humanitarian assistance.
Stephen Cornish – Director General – Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) – Operational Center Geneva, said: “We are shocked and saddened by the impact of this disaster. Health facilities are impacted and overwhelmed. Medical personnel in Türkiye and northern Syria are working round the clock to respond to the huge numbers of wounded arriving at facilities. We are deeply thankful to the IKEA Foundation for increasing their donation with an additional €10 million grant to our emergency fund.
About the IKEA Foundation
The IKEA Foundation is a strategic philanthropy that focuses its grant making efforts on tackling the two biggest threats to children’s futures: poverty and climate change. It currently grants more than €200 million per year to help improve family incomes and quality of life while protecting the planet from climate change. Since 2009, the IKEA Foundation has granted more than €1.5 billion to create a better future for children and their families. In 2021 the Foundation decided to make an additional €1 billion available over the next five years to accelerate the reduction of Greenhouse Gas emissions. Learn more at: www.ikeafoundation.org
About Médecins Sans Frontières
Founded in 1971, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is an international, independent medical humanitarian organization, working in more than 70 countries. MSF provides medical assistance to people affected by conflict, epidemics, disasters, or exclusion from healthcare. Learn more at www.msf.org
To view this piece of content from cts.businesswire.com, please give your consent at the top of this page.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230208005519/en/
Contact information
Lotika Mehta
Lotika.mehta@ikeafoundation.org
About Business Wire
For more than 50 years, Business Wire has been the global leader in press release distribution and regulatory disclosure.
Subscribe to releases from Business Wire
Subscribe to all the latest releases from Business Wire by registering your e-mail address below. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Latest releases from Business Wire
Samsung and Mistral AI Announce Strategic Partnership for Intelligence-Driven Semiconductor Infrastructure8.9.2026 19:15:00 EEST | Press release
Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., today announced it has entered into a strategic partnership with Mistral AI to enhance its semiconductor engineering and manufacturing capabilities that will reinforce its leadership in AI chip technologies. The announcement of the partnership was made during the state summit held in Paris between South Korea and France. Under the agreement, Samsung will integrate Mistral’s AI services and solutions—including its flagship large language model, Mistral Large—across its semiconductor operations to develop customized on-premises AI models optimized for intelligence-driven infrastructure. Mistral’s powerful AI platform is expected to provide Samsung with a unique stack of tools that will transform how semiconductors are designed and manufactured. The on-premises enterprise solutions will especially ensure security and flexibility required to process highly sensitive technologies and operational data entirely within the boundaries of Samsung’s semiconductor in
Sensereo Airo Wins IFA Berlin Innovation Award8.9.2026 18:00:00 EEST | Press release
Sensereo, an environmental intelligence company developing next-generation sensing products for safer, healthier and smarter living, was presented with the prestigious IFA Berlin Innovation Award for its Airo modular indoor air quality system. The award was presented during IFA Berlin on Thursday, Sept. 4, recognizing Airo for its innovative approach to helping consumers better understand and manage the quality of their indoor environments. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260906292649/en/ Winner of a 2026 IFA Innovation Award, Airo is Sensereo’s flagship environmental intelligence platform, combining advanced sensing technology with a modular design that allows users to monitor multiple aspects of indoor air quality and environmental conditions through a single, consumer-friendly system. Designed to transform complex environmental data into useful, actionable information, Airo helps households better understan
Verdantis Rebrands as the AI Super-Agent for MRO, Sets Sights on AI-Native Enterprise Asset Management8.9.2026 17:06:00 EEST | Press release
Verdantis, the AI company for spare parts and MRO inventory optimization in asset-intensive industries, today unveiled its new brand identity as the AI Super-agent for MRO and announced it is building toward a fully AI-native Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) platform. Verdantis’s super-agent orchestrates nine specialized AI agents across the decisions that decide plant uptime: spare parts, criticality, demand, reorder, and work order planning. These decisions set working capital, maintenance spend, and whether a critical asset runs and, in most plants, they are still made in spreadsheets and disconnected systems. The positioning is for the teams who own uptime - maintenance, reliability, and MRO supply chain leaders in oil and gas, mining, utilities, chemicals, and manufacturing. And it reflects an AI-first architecture: agents decide and act by default; people supervise, override, and teach the system. Every human override creates feedback that helps the system learn. That principle
HyperLight Welcomes VentureTech Alliance to Series C, Deepening TFLN Integration Across the Semiconductor Ecosystem8.9.2026 17:00:00 EEST | Press release
HyperLight Corporation ("HyperLight"), a leader in thin-film lithium niobate (TFLN) photonics, today announced that VentureTech Alliance ("VTA") has joined its Series C financing round. VTA is a venture investment firm focused on the semiconductor industry, with a portfolio built across the semiconductor technology stack — including circuit design, foundry-adjacent process technology, EDA, advanced packaging, and photonics. VTA's participation extends the ecosystem alignment that defined the round, which brought together investors spanning silicon ICs, foundry manufacturing, electronics manufacturing services, networking, and global infrastructure capital. With VTA's addition, the syndicate now reaches further into the semiconductor manufacturing and design-enablement layers on which high-volume photonics production depends. "The transition to TFLN is not a component decision — it is an ecosystem decision," said Mian Zhang, CEO of HyperLight. "Getting TFLN into volume requires the proc
EcoOnline Appoints Conor O’Loughlin as CEO8.9.2026 17:00:00 EEST | Press release
EcoOnline, a global provider of software that transforms how organisations protect people and the planet, today announced the appointment of Conor O’Loughlin as Chief Executive Officer, effective immediately. O’Loughlin succeeds Tom Goodmanson and will lead the Company into its next chapter of growth and innovation, continuing EcoOnline’s mission of keeping employees safe across the globe and supporting more than 11,000 customers. O’Loughlin is an experienced, growth-oriented technology operator and founder. He co-founded fitness technology company Glofox, scaling it into a global SaaS business serving customers in more than 80 countries before its acquisition by ABC Fitness in 2022. Following the acquisition, he served as Platform President and later Global Chief Revenue Officer at ABC Fitness, leading strategy across the company’s revenue-generating activities. “Keeping people safe at work is more important than ever, and EcoOnline does it with a depth of expertise that few can match
In our pressroom you can read all our latest releases, find our press contacts, images, documents and other relevant information about us.
Visit our pressroom