Border cities do not merely lie along the geographical boundaries of two countries; they are thresholds where identities, languages, cultures and politics intersect. These cities sit at the heart of complex issues such as migration, trade, security and solidarity. The pain experienced at borders cannot be captured by statistics alone: lives delayed by bureaucratic obstacles, families torn apart and the aching uncertainty of rootlessness. Gaziantep, located along the Syrian-Turkish border, stands out not only as a witness to mass displacement but also as a city that has chosen the path of shared living, rooted in dignity and resilience.
This ancient city, home to diverse peoples throughout history, has in the past decade emerged as one of Türkiye’s first points of response to the tragedies unfolding just across the border. Following the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011, Gaziantep opened its doors to hundreds of thousands of refugees, not only offering temporary shelter but also choosing to build a long-term vision of coexistence. Under the leadership of Mayor Fatma Şahin, a new approach centered on compassionate urbanism has been institutionalized, one that views migration not as a threat but as a social opportunity. Through this vision, Gaziantep has gone beyond being just a border city; it has become a model of resilience and coexistence recognized internationally.
Through bilingual public services, multicultural communication campaigns and cultural integration programs carried out by the Gaziantep Municipality, efforts have been made to ensure that refugees do not feel alone or like strangers. In the streets where Turkish and Arabic are spoken side by side, in workshops where Syrian women gain new skills, and in classrooms where children from both communities learn together, Gaziantep redefines the border, not as a line of fear, but as a space for healing, solidarity, and mutual transformation. By seeing migration not as a crisis to be managed, but as the beginning of a life to be built together, Gaziantep has become a hopeful model of a border city for the entire world.
Yet a border city’s transformation into a compassionate city is not achieved merely through emergency aid or bureaucratic efficiency. It requires reweaving daily life with principles of justice and mutual care. To better understand such a transformation, one can turn to Ada María Isasi-Díaz, a Latina feminist theologian and one of the founders of mujerista theology, who drew deeply from the lived ethical and spiritual experiences of Latina immigrant women. Isasi-Díaz articulates this framework most clearly through her concept of lo cotidiano – the everyday – as developed in her seminal work "En La Lucha: Elaborating a Mujerista Theology," particularly in the chapter titled “Latinas as Moral Agents.” For her, justice is not built through abstract ideals, but through the relationships and practices people live out day by day.
In Gaziantep, this insight finds tangible form: in women’s training centers, bilingual services and schoolyards where children from different backgrounds learn side by side. Here, the border is no longer a line of division; it becomes a landscape of healing. In this way, Gaziantep has shown how the everyday can be the ground where justice is lived and shared.
The Compassionate Cities movement began in 2008 with the launch of the Charter for Compassion, an initiative led by TED Prize-winning author and thinker Karen Armstrong. The Compassionate Cities movement requires local governments to officially adopt the Charter and implement measurable actions to embed compassion into public policy and civic life across various domains, from education and social services to health care and cultural inclusion. Today, more than 121 cities around the world have signed the charter and earned the designation of “Compassionate City.”
Gaziantep became one of Türkiye’s first cities to be recognized as a Compassionate City in 2021, following a structured process aligned with the global Charter for Compassion. The commitment was led by the Gaziantep Metropolitan Municipality under the coordination of its Department of Migration and Integration and Department of Women and Family Affairs. The recognition was based on the city’s implementation of several institutional programs that actively support vulnerable populations, particularly Syrian refugees, since the onset of the Syrian civil war in 2011. For instance, Gaziantep’s early adoption of integrated municipal refugee services, well before national policy mandates, was aligned with this inclusive vision.
The Gaziantep Municipality has started several key initiatives, one of which is MIGDEM (Migrant Support Centers). Established in 2014, these centers provide multilingual legal assistance, psychosocial counseling, health service referrals, and basic needs support. They operate in partnership with national institutions and are partially funded by international humanitarian agencies.
Another critical initiative is women’s empowerment and training centers. Since 2015, the municipality has opened multiple centers where Syrian and Turkish women receive language instruction, vocational training, and entrepreneurship support. The Department of Women and Family Affairs implements these programs in cooperation with national grant schemes and donor-backed projects.
There are also inclusive education and youth programs. Local schools, with municipal and NGO collaboration, offer mixed classrooms, Turkish-Arabic language support, and summer activities aimed at social integration and friendship-building. Some projects are supported through the EU Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance (IPA) funding mechanisms.
The city also organizes public cultural initiatives such as shared Ramadan iftars, neighborhood festivals and cultural workshops to foster coexistence in everyday life. Bilingual signage has been gradually adopted across public transportation and municipal buildings to ensure accessibility.
All of these efforts contributed to Gaziantep’s qualification under the Compassionate Cities framework, not as abstract ideals but as grounded policies that impact daily life. The recognition reflects a deliberate and institutionalized model of social solidarity at the municipal level.
Gaziantep’s story is not simply about responding to a crisis; it is about redefining the meaning of borders themselves. In this city, the border becomes a shared space where trauma meets resilience and strangers become neighbors. Through consistent and concrete efforts, Gaziantep has shown that compassion is not a sentiment but a strategy for collective well-being. The question of whether borders must be built on fear is asked in many parts of the world. However, Türkiye proves it wrong with its compassionate cities and shows that borders can be built with courage to live together.
