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Help William go to school

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My name is William Mehrvarz and I am an Iranian Jewish asylum seeker. Due to religious persecution, I fled Iran in September 2016. I had to abandon my achievements and all I had earned in Iran including family, friends, property, and educational career.

I fled an abusive environment, family, and society with high hopes of getting to a safe place to start my life from scratch.

I was married to a secular Muslim woman and after she revealed my Jewish identity to her family, they locked me up in their house and threatened me to call the Police. I managed to escape their house and quickly went to my apartment and packed everything that represented my Judaism and fled to Armenia.

I arrived in the US in November 2016 and ever since I have faced many challenges one of them financial.

After being accepted to Columbia University I was super excited to start my educational career in an IvyLeague school but without the school's generosity, I might not be able to fulfill that dream. With a pending asylum case, it is quite impossible to get student loans in the way that most people would and my immigration status makes me ineligible to apply for federal financial aids.

I have been able to transfer 60 credits from Iran and that leaves me with two more years at Columbia to graduate. I have majored in Human Rights and I hope that with your support, I will overcome this obstacle and will graduate in 2020.

I have been interviewed by the Times of Israel and you can read the article here:
https://www.timesofisrael.com/fleeing-native-iran-a-would-be-convert-to-judaism-gets-new-start-in-nyc/

Thank you for your support.

Organizer

William Mehrvarz
Organizer
New York, NY

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