Taiwan is building a multi-purpose facility along the border of Turkey and Syria to serve Turkey residents and Syrian refugees living in the area. Taiwan’s representative office in Turkey made the announcement on Monday. The cluster of 52 dome structures is slated for completion in September.
Called the Reyhanli Center for World Citizens or the Taiwan Center, the place in the Turkish city of Reyhanli will be where people of different ethnicities come together to take classes and receive vocational training. The venue will also become a hub for art exchanges and artist-in-residence programs that feature artists from Taiwan, Syria and Turkey.
Taiwan is financing the building while the local Hatay City Government provided the land and some of the funds. The center covers 6,000 square meters of land.
The facility is the first of its kind to bridge the division between the people of the two sides since Syria became a decade-long war torn country. Reyhanli, which has a population of only 100,000 Turks, is now also home to 120,000 Syrian refugees.