**UPDATE: Thank you so much to everyone who has already contributed -- it has made a big difference! The most immediate needs for health insurance and basic stability earlier this fall have been met, but we still need to raise more to support her to have continued stability in the coming months. She needs $7,000 to pay rent and cover basic needs for the next 2-3 months -- can you support?**
Over the past several months, we have been supporting an asylum seeker who has been struggling with extreme instability: financial instability, housing instability, and struggling with the impact of life-threatening violence and abuse that she endured in her country of origin. She has been experiencing this level of instability on and off for the past seven years, and in the past year alone she has moved more than 30 times. Without a safety net to fall back on, she is in urgent need of a wider network to support her in gaining safety and stability. This is where you come in.
As you will see, she is raising $35,000 to gain stability for the next 6 months, in the hopes that she can recover, get a job, and go back to school within the next year. Most urgently, she needs $7,000 by the first week of January to cover her most basic needs for the couple months. Please read below to hear her story. To protect her identity and ensure her safety, we are not sharing her name here. Thank you for giving generously, and please share this with others in your network who can help!
--------------------------------------------------------------
Eight years ago, I came to the US on a full scholarship for college with big dreams. Little did I know that very soon, the weight of the extreme violence and the physical, emotional, and sexual abuse I thought I had escaped would catch up to me. I grew up in an inhumanely misogynistic and abusive place where I was persecuted because of my gender, my belief in empowerment for women, and equality and freedom for all. Despite my best efforts, I crashed and burned as the wounds from the past erupted in full force. I had no choice but to take a leave of absence from school and apply for asylum because my life was being directly threatened by my biological family.
Since then, over the last seven years, I have struggled to break out of a cycle of trauma and extreme poverty. My asylum case is still pending, and under this current administration is even more in jeopardy. I have been in and out of school multiple times, and when not in school, with no one to support me, I have had to work 2-3 jobs to survive. Even though I tried my hardest, the acute, raw terror, the daily nightmares, the disruptive flashbacks from the trauma made it extremely difficult for me to maintain housing and financial stability, let alone heal. To this day, I am sobbing uncontrollably every day, and terrified. At this point, these persistent post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms have aggravated so much that it is impossible for me to hold down a job or even function properly. To make matters even worse, I am also struggling with chronic Lyme disease and long Covid: neuropathy in my extremities, overall weakness, chronic fatigue and back pain, and brain fog.
I have tried and tried again to overcome these enormous challenges on my own - after all, I had to be hyper independent growing up. However, I keep struggling because these challenges are too big for me to overcome alone. I have no safety net to fall back on: I am severed from my family and as an asylum seeker I am ineligible for public benefits in the US, including food stamps, rental support, loans, and health insurance. Moreover, I have complex-PTSD which distorts my sense of self, rendering me way too hypervigilant, unable to trust people, and feeling worthless.
This is why I am so grateful to the few people who have offered me support, and especially Davida and Becky (whom I’ve recently met) who are helping me with this GoFundMe. With their encouragement, I am willing to brave my shame and fear and open up with a big ask:
Will you help me break out of this cycle of inter-generational trauma and extreme poverty?
I humbly ask you to give what you can so that I can not only survive, but finally thrive. I need $35,000, which would meet my core needs for safety and stability for the next 6 months, including housing (being able to rent a place on my own), food, healthcare, and transportation. Your help at this critical juncture will empower me to finally actually process all the unhealed traumas with professional help and get well enough to then return to school and graduate – instead of continuing to fall through the cracks. Once I’m well enough, I intend to work part-time to support myself to the extent I am able. Longer-term, I am fiercely determined to finish my degree in political science and go on to law school to become a human rights lawyer – an advocate for other people who face systemic oppression around the world.
Most urgently, I need $7,000 by the first week of September, to cover my immediate basic needs for the next month, and renew my annual health insurance. I am not eligible for Mass Health and in order to meet my extensive physical and mental health needs, it is essential that I can renew this insurance before it expires.
Thank you, so very much, from the bottom of my heart, for reading my story, and for any contribution you make. I hope to keep you all updated about my journey towards healing and thriving, and aim to share periodic updates with those who support me through this GoFundMe.
—-------------------------------------------
We have been moved by the resilience and determination of her story, and can speak from firsthand experience to how kind, intelligent, and determined she is – and how much she has to offer the world. We are so grateful for your support, whatever amount you can give will make a difference!