Hi. I’m Tony, a co-organizer of this fundraiser hoping for your kind and urgent help for Xu Olivera, who is struggling with serious health issues complicated by a disabling injury.

Xu is a remarkable, inspiring Zapotec woman living in San Cristobal, Mexico.

I met Xu by chance several months ago at a birthday party. She’s a force, impossible to miss.

Covered in tattoos, she sat with both knees wrapped in braces, crutches by her side. Even with crutches Xu can barely get around. Still, she was like a tornado stuck in a chair, belting out jokes and laughing.

We began to chat.

As a former journalist for four decades, I’ve interviewed thousands of people, including luminaries such as Dr. Jane Goodall and famed cellist Yo-Yo Ma.

Yet no life-story I’d come across in my career gripped and shocked me like Xu’s.

As a child Xu fled her remote mountain village after her parents and community put her through enough suffering that made the streets seem a safer place to exist.

She wound up homeless on Mexico City's most squalid, violent streets for years. She was hungry, alone, terrified.

And preyed on.

For several years she was held in Mexico City under the control of a human trafficking system that forced her to street fight for entertainment.

“I was this kid fighting grown-ups” she told me.

Xu somehow survived this ruthless abuse and trafficking, but remains haunted by the rapes and murders of young girls and women she knew.

Thanks to her determination - and the occasional kindness of strangers - Xu eventually rose above that brutal life.

One day as a teen in Mexico City, she walked into a Muay Thai gym offering a free lesson. The instructor, noticing immediately she was already a capable street fighter, gave her a scholarship to train free at the gym.

She was so destitute and malnourished during training that, at times, she ate fried “lombrices” (earthworms) for protein.

“I had my first amateur fight, like, five months or four months after. I lost, though.” Yet a promoter who saw her fight asked to promote her. She started training in Taekwondo and Jiu-Jitsu.

Around age 17 Xu had her professional martial arts debut in Mexico City. Later, hearing of more lucrative professional tournaments in Spain, she scraped together enough funds from odd jobs and supportive friends to fly to Madrid.

Using her fists, feet and brains Xu paid for university in Madrid through fighting, coaching and teaching.

After earning degrees in Kinesiology and social work, she returned to San Cristobal, Mexico.

In 2021 Xu founded REFEMA, an organization that uses her specialized, holistic system to teach girls and women self-defense to help protect them from violence across Mexico. Not only the physical, but she also teaches them logic, anatomy, Law, etc.

But now Xu needs the help of friends - and the kindness of strangers - to fight her toughest battle - with her own body.

On April 26, 2026 while working out at a gym, a training partner accidentally hyper-extended her knees, tearing all four meniscuses and spraining her anterior cruciate ligaments.

As well, Xu has struggled for years with a number of chronic illnesses.

Among them is Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, a genetic disorder affecting her connective tissue. She also has fibromyalgia and Dysautonomia, a nervous system disorder that causes symptoms such as fainting, fatigue, and heart palpitations.

Though she works teaching autistic children, her knee injuries on top of her other conditions have greatly reduced her ability both to work and to travel Mexico with REFEMA helping women and girls learn to defend themselves against the violence Xu experienced herself for much of her life.

Xu loves to dance, swim, walk and play with her dogs and coach her specialized martial arts system through REFEMA. But she is now, depressingly, mostly confined to her home where she lives with her two German Shepherds, Vulcan and Astra, and her cat Capu.

When a friend and I visited Xu recently, he carried her on his back upstairs to her bathroom. When she is alone she crawls up.

Xu works teaching autistic children online. But has lost income since April.

She’s had to cancel classes because of physical and mental exhaustion since her knee injuries and flare ups in her other conditions.

She’s currently struggling just to pay her rent, let alone the cost of physio for her knees, or the medications and treatments she needs to get back to her more vigorous self.

“I don't have and I've never had family to help me or take care of me,” Xu told me recently.

“But I have not stopped helping women in need. Yesterday morning I had two calls to answer legal questions and I don't charge for that. Between June and July I have provided advice and access to medication to three women who needed an abortion.”

A fiercely independent person who would rather be helping others, Xu was reluctant for anyone to help her start a Gofundme. It took convincing.

All funds raised to meet our goal (about $10,000 in US dollars) would help this courageous, caring survivor of horrific violence cover her medical treatments, rent, food, dietary supplements, taxis and other expenses in Mexico for about six months.

By then, Xu hopes her knees and other conditions will have improved to the point where she can be the hardworking independent person she was before.

Any excess funds raised will go to continue her campaign to reduce violence against women and girls through REFEMA.

We thank everyone for your financial and emotional support for Xu and all you can do to share this Gofundme with others across the world.