Help Leslie Pastora Support Familia in Nicaragua
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Help Leslie Pastora—a queer, Nicaragüense community mental health worker—to support her family members impacted by government repression and economic devastation in Nicaragua.
Please contribute if you can. Leslie Pastora hopes to raise $7,000 before she leaves for Nicaragua on November 10.
For fifteen years, Leslie Pastora has done bi-cultural and transformative mental health work with immigrant teens in East Los Angeles, the Mission District, and correctional facilities. All along, her work has been fueled by a deep connection to Nicaragua, the country she and her parents had to flee more than thirty years ago due to civil unrest. Now, Leslie Pastora is fundraising to support her family, who have been deeply impacted by the government’s current violent suppression of mass protests and the resulting financial downturn.
Who is Leslie Pastora's Familia?
Leslie Pastora’s family lives in Barrio Santa Rosa, in Managua, the capital city of Nicaragua. In the last year and a half, this neighborhood has been especially hard-hit by paramilitary violence and state surveillance. Members of her family have been arrested, detained, and tortured by state officials. Even those that have not faced direct state violence have mostly lost their sources of income and found themselves in dire financial situations.
There are more than twenty people living in the family home, most of whom are women; and they are doing everything they can to afford food, medicine and education. The household includes Leslie Pastora’s aunties, uncles, her nieces and nephews, all of her cousins, her father, and her grandmother, the matriarch of the family.
Because her family and her country have been sources of immeasurable strength for her throughout her years of community work, she plans to visit Nicaragua this fall to provide support for her family members as they endure this man-made financial crisis.
Please consider donating so she can help her family get back on their feet:
> A donation of $20 provides a month of groceries for one family member
> A donation of $50 provides a week of her Grandma’s medicine
> A donation of $100 provides a month of schooling for five kids
What’s Going on in Nicaragua
For more information about the situation in Nicaragua, here are some helpful resources about the original protests in April 2018 , the media crackdown since then , and the situation of political prisoners .
All of this has caused major damage to Nicaragua’s economy. Unsurprisingly, the economic downturn has had the greatest consequences for already marginalized groups: queer people, indigenous people, women, people of African descent and the poorest of the poor, amongst others.
Who is Leslie Pastora
Leslie Pastora is a Nicaragüense refugee and a queer, female-identified community mental health worker. Her father and mother were torn apart by the last round of civil unrest in Nicaragua in the 1980s, and after many years of border-crossing and asylum-seeking, they managed to re-unite the family in East Los Angeles.
She grew up in Echo Park in the 1980s, living amidst another type of war against her community. Since the age of eight, she’s had a chance to visit her family in Nicaragua every year and through those visits, has sustained a deep connection with her country. This link to her patria and her family has been a source of resilience that she has always drawn on in her work in community. She has worked in community mental health almost half her life and has found it to be a very powerful source of healing that she is privileged to do amongst other immigrants and refugees.
Please Contribute If You Can, and Support Leslie Pastora and a Free Nicaragua.
Please contribute if you can. Leslie Pastora hopes to raise $7,000 before she leaves for Nicaragua on November 10.
For fifteen years, Leslie Pastora has done bi-cultural and transformative mental health work with immigrant teens in East Los Angeles, the Mission District, and correctional facilities. All along, her work has been fueled by a deep connection to Nicaragua, the country she and her parents had to flee more than thirty years ago due to civil unrest. Now, Leslie Pastora is fundraising to support her family, who have been deeply impacted by the government’s current violent suppression of mass protests and the resulting financial downturn.
Who is Leslie Pastora's Familia?
Leslie Pastora’s family lives in Barrio Santa Rosa, in Managua, the capital city of Nicaragua. In the last year and a half, this neighborhood has been especially hard-hit by paramilitary violence and state surveillance. Members of her family have been arrested, detained, and tortured by state officials. Even those that have not faced direct state violence have mostly lost their sources of income and found themselves in dire financial situations.
There are more than twenty people living in the family home, most of whom are women; and they are doing everything they can to afford food, medicine and education. The household includes Leslie Pastora’s aunties, uncles, her nieces and nephews, all of her cousins, her father, and her grandmother, the matriarch of the family.
Because her family and her country have been sources of immeasurable strength for her throughout her years of community work, she plans to visit Nicaragua this fall to provide support for her family members as they endure this man-made financial crisis.
Please consider donating so she can help her family get back on their feet:
> A donation of $20 provides a month of groceries for one family member
> A donation of $50 provides a week of her Grandma’s medicine
> A donation of $100 provides a month of schooling for five kids
What’s Going on in Nicaragua
For more information about the situation in Nicaragua, here are some helpful resources about the original protests in April 2018 , the media crackdown since then , and the situation of political prisoners .
All of this has caused major damage to Nicaragua’s economy. Unsurprisingly, the economic downturn has had the greatest consequences for already marginalized groups: queer people, indigenous people, women, people of African descent and the poorest of the poor, amongst others.
Who is Leslie Pastora
Leslie Pastora is a Nicaragüense refugee and a queer, female-identified community mental health worker. Her father and mother were torn apart by the last round of civil unrest in Nicaragua in the 1980s, and after many years of border-crossing and asylum-seeking, they managed to re-unite the family in East Los Angeles.
She grew up in Echo Park in the 1980s, living amidst another type of war against her community. Since the age of eight, she’s had a chance to visit her family in Nicaragua every year and through those visits, has sustained a deep connection with her country. This link to her patria and her family has been a source of resilience that she has always drawn on in her work in community. She has worked in community mental health almost half her life and has found it to be a very powerful source of healing that she is privileged to do amongst other immigrants and refugees.
Please Contribute If You Can, and Support Leslie Pastora and a Free Nicaragua.
Organizer and beneficiary
Team Leslie Pastora and Rio
Organizer
San Francisco, CA
Leslie Pastora Reyes
Beneficiary