This reportage was taken in a small gypsy village called Çırpı, about an hour away from Izmir, Turkey. Locals of the village came to Turkey around 1930s from Bulgaria and you can clearly see that they are still living in 1930s conditions.

Woman is hanging clothes, she recently washed

Open-air pool table

Boy who wears a wig

Population of the village is around couple of hundreds and most of them are sorting raw cotton plants for living. Average income for sorting 1 kg of cotton is about 20 cents and if you imagine the size of 1 kg raw cotton , you can easily understand how low their income is.

Children help their family for cotton sorting business

These people are also used badly by their local authorities. When I talked with influential leaders of the village, they said national government sends 50 US dollars per housing in every 3 months for basic care but the headman of this area is taking half of that money and forcing them to sign a paper which says they got the full amount.

"Seni seviyorum" means "I love you" in Turkish

Youngsters of the village. They have no work to do so they are wasting their time in a parked truck.

Living conditions of people who lives in that village don’t have any difference than any poor African town. Majority of housings are made of clay filled rush and cover with nylon.

Mother and her children in front of their nylon-made house

An environmental scene from village

The main thing which affects me is the situation of children. Weather was around 5-10 C degree when I visited this town but almost 90% of children didn’t have any proper shoes, boots or coats. Most of them had open slippers and just a wool sweater on.