By looking at Rikafip's monthly merit overview, I can see that the Turkish local is in the top 5 in the category total number of distributed merits. My guess is it was like that in the past as well. What catches the eye is that the Turkish local board is towards the bottom of the list in the merits per post category. So, there is enough merits to go around there, but you are not rewarding each other enough. You have many more non-merited than merited posts and probably a lot of spam since it's a big local. A new merit source could somewhat improve those stats if theymos decides it's needed.
Based on data on the merit dashboard, the average Turkish local board receives 820 merit distributions every month with an average sender of 53 users last year. I think that's not a big number for a local board as active as Turkey, but the Indonesian local board seems to be doing better with an average of 1103 per month with an average sender of 66 users last year.
Encouraging users to raise awareness to get involved in merit share is basically a bit difficult and easy. However, if we do it consistently, especially when many users there have the desire to rank up, then it can be used as extra motivation for contributors and in inviting and involving them in distribution. It is true that being involved in merit distribution does not have to be forced, but their involvement in merit circulation can basically make local board statistics better.