Hi everyone, my name is María José (MaJo). I’m an international student and would like to acknowledge that I live on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the Coast Salish peoples–Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), Stó:lō and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) Nations, so-called ‘Vancouver’.

My story goes like this: I was born in Tabasco, Villahermosa a small town in the south of Mexico and since a really young age I experienced domestic violence in all its forms from my biological father. My mother left us when I was 12 years old with this perpetrator. A few years after and throughout my teens I was constantly bouncing back and forth from moms to dads, basically running to moms whenever things became unbearable. When I turned 19, after coming home around midnight from a night out with long-term friends, my father physically abused me again while drunk (typical of him), hitting my face and arms (leaving bruises) for arriving late - that’s when I decided that enough was enough and somehow I needed to be out of that violent environment.

So after that event and when things were calm, I convinced him into buying a plane ticket for me to go visit my older sibling who was already in Canada, and that’s how I came to Canada. Once here all I wanted was to never go back to my abusers house, is all I ever wanted since I was a kid. 19 is such a short amount of lived experience tho and I didn’t realize all the challenges moving to Canada would bring (they don’t make it easy without money….). I decided I’d tell him I was going to school here so I could enroll and find a way to remain in Canada for good. But the second I started retracting myself from the relationship, or even asserting my own autonomy, all of my financial support was cut. On top of that, he would already pay every semester late, so I was constantly in debt. Suddenly, I was left with a 6,000.00 cad debt at Langara College (the fees are astronomical because I’m an International student) for the term he never followed through on plus the entire cost of the following term. No warning, no nothing, and just for exercising autonomy over my body/person. I was able to make it through and pay my term by borrowing money from the people around me which were closest friends, my sibling (who is on disability) and their partner, as well as from my partner (who uses loans for his school and had to give my some of his government aid).

Today I find myself in a similar situation, but with all of those resources now exhausted. At this point, I am looking at being deported from Canada and back to an abusive environment where I fear for my safety on every imaginable level. I don’t take this lightly and I am reaching out to the wider community as a final act of desperation. Getting through this semester and eventually receiving my diploma will get my PR and finally get control of my own life back.

My current situation is as follows:

-I work 20-25 hours a week because my visa only allows me to work that amount of hours during school time

-I’m in the food industry as a server. Besides the pandemic slowness, we just learned management is stealing our tips which I used to really rely on in better times.

-I owe the community college $3,884 for my last term

-I need $7,000 for both remaining terms, $3,000 out of those are for commitment fees, that are payed every beginning of the term $1,500 each.

I’m in need to gather the $5,384.00 from the breakdown above before this Friday the 8th of January or 9th. So I can pay Langara college for the term I already cursed, plus my commitment fee for the next one which would be January 10th 2022.

I never thought I’d be starting my own go fund me but I wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t tried everything - Banking institutions can’t give me a loan because I’m not a Permanent resident or Canadian, the government of Canada doesn’t offer any help for those same reasons (despite the global pandemic and its effects on my home country and this one), and Langara College won’t make available any deferred payment methods either.

I am in desperate need and would appreciate any and all of the help you’d be willing to offer. I don’t ask for much and my dreams aren’t anything WILD - I live with a partner I love, we have a cat we cherish like our own child, I’ve just started to get my hand around English really well (although my partner helped edit this text), and I do well in and enjoy the artistic/design practices I’ve been getting trained in or teaching myself. I just want to continue living my life in safety, with the chance to be happy and make my own decisions. I’m working, crying, and fighting every day to make it happen and it would mean so much to me if you could spare any help at all- if nothing else, even a share goes a long way!

So if you have something to spare, it’s really appreciated with all my heart, especially because I know the financial climate hasn’t been a favourable one for anyone during the last couple years and we are all struggling to maintain.

Gracias amigxs.