Give what you can, whenever you can
When you give for gaza here’s how your money will be used
Your donation is for families and children impacted by the ongoing 2023 / 2024 war on Gaza. It’s important you know that you are not giving to a registered charity but to an initiative created by me, Donna Williams, founder of Emergencyoga and Donna Williams Wellbeing.
Having worked for the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement for almost 25 years, half my life, including carrying out two missions with the International Committee of the Red Cross in Palestine, with multiple stays in Gaza, I have personally created this fundraising opportunity to support people I know and know of, families that I know are suffering or that have been recommended to me for support by trusted friends and colleagues.
Your money will be spent on the following support for families in Gaza affected by the 2023/2024 war:
Support that helps families stay alive and well in Gaza
Support that helps families leave Gaza to find safety and protection, temporarily or permanently
Support that helps families that left Gaza because of war and / or now want to return home to Gaza
Support to families who are rebuilding their lives in Gaza once the war has finally stopped
Support to children in Gaza or who were evacuated to keep them alive, safe, protected and educated
Where possible and appropriate cash will be given directly to families to spend on the things that they decide are most vital for their lives. This may be things like food, water and shelter, reconstruction of housing, the starting of small businesses, but it could also be education, travel out of or back into Gaza, visa processing fees, communication tools and more.
This fundraising initiative, intentionally provides as much freedom and choice to the people that it supports in the way they keep themselves and their families safe and protected and choose to rebuild their lives. This is because war and violence take choice, freedom and dignity away from people and I absolutely do not want your generosity to perpetuate that.
An account of income and expenses will be published on my Emergencyoga Instagram account and on this website @emergencyoga.org. Please note that one expense of raising money is the processing fee that the payment provider Stripe charges my account. This is relatively minimal in comparison to many crowd sourcing websites or the administration costs of large humanitarian organizations. I will publish these donation processing costs transparently.
Please also be aware that it is not easy to get goods or cash into Gaza to support families and children nor is it an easy process to help people leave Gaza. Your donation may not be used immediately but it will absolutely be used in the ways stated above. The situation in Gaza is such that decades of support will be required to help families and children find safety, be protected and rebuild their lives in Gaza and beyond. Your generosity will most definitely go towards that, and it will also take time. Please be patient with me and my network and know I am in this for the long haul.
thank you
Donna Williams @emergencyoga
April 2024 Update
I write this update on the first day of the Eid al-Fitr festival, marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan. Eid is usually celebrated by Muslims all over the world with prayers, reunions with family and friends, new clothes, fabulous food and sweet treats.
A family update
Today *Dr Ahmed is celebrating being alive and nursing a broken foot and a badly injured hand and elbow - a not so welcome gift he received trying to run home from his neighbour’s house amidst serious bombing, hoping to reach safety and find his oldest son alive (he did thank goodness!). In typical *Dr Ahmed style he did not go to the already overburdened, partially functional hospital but treated himself at home, only seeking medical supplies a few days later.
The rent on his temporary accommodation in Rafah has increased from USD $650 / to $1,000. Despite him having used all his savings to get his wife and four other children to safety in Cairo, he is not allowed to take in other people in need into his rented home to help share the cost. The ‘rule’ of the land lord is only family members can join as so as the rent continues to increase *Dr Ahmed and his son remain hopeful that they too will be able to depart for Cairo soon to be safely reunited with the rest of their family.
His daughter Jamella has taken matters into her own hands. After watching all her friends leave Gaza months ago, with places in Canadian universities that facilitated their route to safety, Jamella dreams of becoming a dentist. She has started her own Go Fund Me campaign, determined not to let war crush her hopes for a life of freedom and meaning. You can donate directly to support Jamella with this link.
My dear friend *Dunia had hopes this week of finding some food for the Eid celebrations as she shares her rented home with 30 other family members. I am hoping that her sister and family who were displaced again from rented accommodation in Rafah and *Dunia’s parents will by some miracle all be able to join for a meal together today. I know this is something that gives incredible strength to *Dunia, to be with her family in a ‘normal’ moment. She needs the support more than ever these days, as just last week she had to have an emergency (yet routine) operation in a bombed out hospital, wondering if she was even going to wake up alive. Can you even begin to imagine……? *Dunia’s big concern is her daughter Sara who has been suffering so much, losing hope of any future to become an adult and experience all that life offers in the greater world outside Gaza. Just last week Sara won a competition and received a place on a month long exchange Student Leadership Program from the American Consulate, to go to the USA and experience freedom and hope. I desperately want to be able to support Sara with what it will cost for her to take up this place and return that sense of hope to her, hopes that all teenagers should be able to experience.
Your support so far
Below you’ll find an outline of how the incredibly generous contributions that we have received to date have been utilized. As of the beginning of April we had essentially overspent against the contributions we received due to the bank charges incurred by transferring money direct to our families accounts in Gaza (this is why you see more than 100% in the report). We always choose to pay for immediate transfer which comes at a cost, knowing that without this additional fee, the money can be significantly held up and take weeks to arrive in Palestine.
Fortunately since the time of the report below we have already received further donations and at the same time we still need more because the war continues, people’s resilience is low and the situation becomes worse and worse each day in Gaza. And because we want to especially make sure that our families can stay together even if that means being out of Gaza and out of Palestine and that the children especially have a sense of a future being possible.
To date your contributions although mostly given directly in cash have been spent on food, rent, medical supplies and on one (still open) visa application, all of which has meant both families have been safer, more protected and more hopeful than most in Gaza.
What next?
I’m in this for the long haul and am currently looking to form an association for our work so that your donations can be more effective with charitable status. I want to be able to support not only *Dr Ahmed and *Dunia and their families but to be able to give direct support to many more families over the next decade. Because that’s the toll this war takes, decades of recovery for people, children, their bodies and minds, for education, for their dreams, for homes to be reconstructed and for families separated to re-find each other and to be able to live with freedom and in peace. If you would like to be part of our association in some way please reach out on info@emergencyoga.org and let me know - together we are always stronger.
Thank you with every fiber of my being for for your generosity and your solidarity.
Namaste, Donna x
*Names changed for privacy and security
