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Help out a Venezuelan student

Hi! My name is Jorge and I am trying to raise money for Marcos González. Marcos is a 20 year old student in Venezuela, I know him since many years ago when I met him one time I was in Venezuela and we are good friends. He studies Modern Languages and he’s specializing in Translations. He is a 7th Day Adventist boy who loves reading, writing, history, linguistics, and videogames. He is a good student, and he has an excellent sense of humor that he loves sharing with everyone around him. He has also started to gain experience in the world of translations in helping to translate and edit a book published last year in Venezuela, where he is credited as one of the editors (underlined in yellow in the following pic as Marcos González Jr).


He also helps to translate in the soccer fansite Grup14 (here’s the link to his profile in the site: https://grup14.com/member/marcos-gonzalez) and here is the first article he has helped to back-translate, this is, from Spanish to English (https://grup14.com/article/how-can-aleix-vidal-help-barcelona-midway-through-the-season).

What is the problem? The only PC he has ever owned, the one he has used since 2009, is in a terrible condition, and he is in the dire need of a new one. Most of the time he is working in a translation or writing, the machine is constantly stuttering and freezing, to the point where it needs to be reset in order to function again, until it starts stuttering and freezing again. He has taken care of this machine, and he has tried to upgrade it, but to no avail, because after every upgrade and formatting he has performed, the computer is old and it just doesn't work as it used to do before. That PC is where he works, he studies, he writes, he works on his essays, he watches his movies, etcetera. This last year was rough because the PC started to fail a lot and this almost influenced his grades, for it got damaged for some weeks and that’s where all of his info and his essays are stored. As a future translator, that little machine is all he needs to work, and if he doesn't have one, what is he going to work with?

And why can’t he buy a new computer on his own? He is from Venezuela, a country that is suffering a lot, delinquency is ruling the streets, with the most dangerous city in the world (Caracas), one of the most high inflation rates in the world, and with a scarcity of the most basic products (like floor, milk, toilet paper, and shampoo). Even the Venezuelan Congress declared a “healthcare crisis” this last week, in order to bring more medicines and humanitarian help, because not even the people with cancer have access to their more basic medical treatments. Life in Venezuela is rough, because the country lives a situation of unrest, where its citizens have to stay for hours in long queues to buy what they can find, and where the economic situation restricts many, if not most of them from living like a modern western society.

Marcos is directly affected by this situation, because he not only studies, but he also works teaching English, and his total income is about 11$ A MONTH (because Venezuelan economy is so broken that the minimal wage compared to the black market dollar, the one that Venezuelans use because the government has a very strict currency exchange, is almost 9$), and all of it goes to his personal expenditures, like food, items for college, etc. That’s why he can’t get a new computer even if he saves all of his money without buying anything else, and he’s nervous about what happens when the one he owns finally bites the dust and he’ll have nothing to work with.


That is why I want to help Marcos to get a new machine, the one I think he deserves. A laptop he can use for college (to translate, to write his essays, to study). I know that this would mean the world to him, because he would be able to focus on his studies with his only tool without the fear of losing it, he could translate, read, all of this possible with his brand new PC, which can last him for many years and, again, be essential in the task of helping him with his studies, which he values a lot.

On the other hand, this funding has been updated to support Marcos's plan with what’s to come in his specialized studies in translations and to help him to gather money for his expenses in the internship he is planning to take abroad in 2017, God willing.

Thank you so much for reading this!

Blessings,

Jorge.

Organizer

Jorge Gonzalez
Organizer
Astoria, NY

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