Give Urgent Aid and Hope to Newlyweds Essa and Ratel

Ashley Cox is organizing this fundraiser on behalf of Paisley Shelton.

Donation protected

Hello Friends!

My name is Ashley I live near NYC in the United States. I have compassionately vetted and verified Essa and Ratel who have become like family to me. Here is their story:

My name is Shadia but my nickname is Ratel. I am married to the love of my life, Essa.

Before this aggression started, our life together was peaceful and full of love. Essa ran a beautiful citrus and rose nursery — a place that smelled of hope and growth.

He also owned a small Skoda, and on weekends we would go to the beach, visit parks, and try new restaurants.

After I married the love of my life, everything felt perfect. I was safe. I was seen. We had dreams — we were preparing our passports, planning to travel to Europe, and talking endlessly about the future we wanted to build.

One of my favorite things Essa used to do was write me little love poems on our coffee cups. He’d pass it to me with a shy smile, and even on the hardest days, those words reminded me that I was deeply loved. That kind of love — quiet, constant, poetic — was the heart of our life together.

But when this violence came, it took almost everything.

Our home was destroyed. The nursery — gone. My university — turned to rubble. Essa’s car — crushed. Many of our friends and family members are dead.

Now, we are just two people walking through the ruins of our past, trying to survive. We don’t have bread. We don’t have clean water. We don’t have fruit, vegetables, meat — not even the basic necessities of life.

But somehow, we still have each other. And somehow, Essa still writes poems for me — even if they’re just scribbled on scraps of paper instead of coffee cups.

I was only married for one month before the war began. We never got to enjoy the beauty of our beginning.

Essa’s dream was to study medicine abroad and become a doctor. My dream was to photograph the world’s natural beauty and share it through my lens.

These dreams are still alive inside us, no matter how much is burning around us. We also hope to take care of Essa’s 14 year old nephew Mohammed. He has hearing problems, and we want to help him meet his needs.