August 2026 Update:

It has been four months since I started this campaign. I am still here, still fighting, and still not where I need to be. My infusion treatment is still overdue. I am still job searching. I am still trying to hold on. $3,325 of $25,000 has been raised and I need this to find new people. If you have seen this before, please share it again. The right person has not seen it yet.

My Story . . . 

Hi, I’m Jasmine!

I am a public health professional who has spent over a decade fighting for other people’s health and survival. Right now I need people to show up for mine. I have a chronic condition that requires infusion treatments every six months. My treatment is overdue. I have Medicaid but it is not enough to cover what I need, and the gap between what it covers and what my body actually requires is widening every week I go without care. This is not abstract. This is my body, and I am scared. How I got here I was laid off in July 2024 after years of building a career in HIV prevention, sexual health, and health equity across Chicago and beyond. I coordinated 165 NIH-funded projects.
I helped secure over $400,000 in grants for community organizations. I published research. I taught. I showed up every single day for this work because I believed in it. I fought my way back and found a new role in June 2025. I told myself the worst was over. It wasn’t.
I work in sexual health, a field this administration has specifically targeted and gutted. The job I had just started existed inside a constant legal and political war, injunctions, court challenges, and the threat of shutdown hanging over everything. By March 2025 I was out again. One of hundreds of thousands of Black women systematically pushed out of their careers, not laid off, pushed out, by policies designed to dismantle the work we do. What survival looks like right now No job. Underinsured. An overdue treatment my body is asking for every single day. I am trying to keep a roof over my head, keep the lights on, and keep moving forward even on the days when I genuinely do not know what I am moving toward. Why I am leaving I have made a painful decision to stop waiting for this country to make space for me and to find that space somewhere else. I am not leaving by choice. I am leaving because staying has become unsustainable, for my career, for my health, for my ability to imagine a future at all. I am searching for work internationally, somewhere my skills are valued and my body can actually be cared for. That path has real costs I cannot cover alone.

Your support would help cover:

• Medical costs and infusion treatment while underinsured 
• Rent and essential living expenses while I search for work 
• Immigration legal support and visa fees 
• Travel and relocation costs Job search expenses as I pursue opportunities abroad (it feels like I have to at this point)
  

Closing:
I have spent the last year refusing to give up. I am still refusing, even on the days when I cannot see what I am holding on for yet. If you can give, thank you from every part of me. If you cannot, please share this. You may be putting it in front of the person who helps me find my way back to myself. Either way, you are helping me survive long enough to get there.