Donate
Be part of the route
By Donating Today
Make a € Donation
Your euro will spend on the route from Istanbul to Konya. It’s on his route to realizing the ancient route in modern times
Donate a Sufi Trail journey
We have a special donation option for people who like to give the Sufi Trail journey to someone else. There are a few options. It’s like giving the perfect journey to someone who needs it.
Donate Your Time
We have a team of experts who are part of the Sufi Team all over the world. Like to spend time with us? We love to meet you and share ideas.
Money Donation
We have the online payment with PayPal. It is secure payment system. You can also donate directly to our bank account below.
CONTACT US
SEDAT ÇAKIR:
+31 6 508 90 696
IRIS BEZUIJEN:
+31 6 440 447 90
Chamber of Commerce: 707 24 776
VAT: NL858435007B01
BANKDETAILS
ING IBAN:
NL06INGB0008164984
BIC: INGBNL2A
WISE IBAN:
BE80 9670 4244 8677
BIC: TRWIBEB1XXX
Give a friend a journey of a lifetime
- You can donate, and pay forward the Sufi Trail starting package
- The cost of a caravan journey hiking or cycling to send your friend on a mission to Konya
- Donate a free amount to pilgrims who have a small budget
Money Donation
The sustainability of the Sufi Trail depends on efforts from many parties.
The Sufi Trail Association’s efforts for the conservation of the trail and aiding the local communities around it need constant funding.
Your donation today can help protect and maintain this unique diversity and richness in landscape and human heritage on the Sufi Trail.
DONATE WITH PAYPAL
How Donations Are Used
Help with the realization of the ‘hike to the light’.
Your donation helps us to pay the office related costs in the Netherlands.
Most of the work is done by volunteers, but sometimes we really need to hire external expertise.
In Türkiye, we do the groundwork of marking and signposting. We try to work with volunteers, and in case we hire local people, we pay them a fair fee for their work.
Everything we sell at the webshop is made by small entrepreneurs, whom we pay a fair price for their work. We use mostly local entrepreneurs in Türkiye and for the office local entrepreneurs in the Netherlands.
We encourage and help local villagers to host pilgrims, and we do help with signage, information and sometimes with furnitures.
Pilgrims and youngsters with insufficient funding we do support with assistance.
Why is it necessary?
The Sufi Trail does not receive subsidies and depends on donations from friends and pilgrims. Since 2015 we steward an 801-kilometre-long pilgrim route from Istanbul to Konya. From 2020 onwards, we are looking for partners in other countries for similar routes.
Help with a culture of reflection on the freedom to follow your own path in connection with your environment and nature.
Simple things, simply for the route
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THe waymaring is done by means of paint and volunteers. we use white and red paint and organize events to waymark parts of the sufi trail. some money is spend on the materials.
- Volunteers do move mountains of work, we love to reward them if the piggy bank allows us, some money will be spent on volunteers rewards.
- Travel costs are made by us mostly we have invested our savings, but if possible in due time we like the foundation to function with route maintenance by means break even in our travel cost.
- Office and running it is done with personal investment and donations from friends and family. Read moms 🙂
QUESTIONS That may raise
What are the materials you buy?
- Red and white Paint
- Gloves
- Paintbrushes
- Water and food for our volunteers
- Bush cutters
- Saw for branches
- Billboards for refugios
How much are the travel cost?
To get from Holland to Istanbul, we often go off-season, which is about 200 per person for a ticket. But as we also are ECO* friendly, we cycle often from Budapest or Belgrade towards Istanbul. The Sultans Trail is also a route we maintain, so we kill two birds with one stone. We then pay 100 euros for two people including our bikes to get by bus to Budapest.
*ECO Economically aware, meaning small budget
How many volunteers work for Sufi Trail?
You can check our team page to see the team and then add quite a few people who worked on our projects. We have a can of creative people who share a warm heart with our Sufi Trail projects or even made a documentary. We are lucky to have welcomed over a hundred, artists, caretakers, cooks, drivers and so many more people we need to thank. The list is endless if I think of it…..
What are the results of your efforts?
They are mostly unmeasurable. If your well-being is improved or someone is seeing a brighter future because of the Sufi Trail on their doorstep, this is not really a statistic. We are now putting our life work and energy into these trials for around seven years and because of the love, light and happiness, it radiates from person to person we don’t even consider doing something else. So we have a lot of happy people, volunteers that thrive and created a playground in a wider sense to give purpose and meaning to the ancient paths of pilgrimage.
What about do you see the Sufi Trail in five years?
We hope to have a well-marked trail in five years and around 200 pilgrims a year that can enjoy and benefit from the work we are doing now. As the Sufi Trail is being called:
- authentic
- non-commercial and
- little hidden gem
We also hope to preserve these desirable aspects of the Sufi Trail and that it will stay small but valuable.
Why on earth are you doing this?
Is it a calling or something that we have chosen, we just don’t know? Besides that, we enjoy and love hiking and cycling we promote little local shops and buy all our Sufi Trail products from small entrepreneurs. It really is working for love and happiness for yourself and others. So just testing whether the saying “if you feel happy, it makes others happy” is true. So far, so good.
Is the Sufi Trail funded?
Currently, we only work with donations and energy, time and expertise that is given to the project. This has grown quite a bit. In the seven years, the project is running we can be happy to say we are not funded with a financial injection but funded for life with the happy years we already had and all the people that benefit from it because of it.
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