Hello, my name is Andrew, I am a university student in San Luis Obispo, California, and I am raising money for Maryam Abu-Shaban and her daughter Nour, a civil engineer. They are from Gaza City, in Palestine. Like many in the Gaza Strip, their lives have been uprooted during the Gaza Genocide. Maryam's husband and son were both taken from this world during the violence. Their home was destroyed and they lost their jobs and source of income.

It tears my heart to see what has happened to the Abu-Shaban Family and all those in the Gaza Strip. Maryam and Nour deserve to leave in peace. They wish to leave Palestine to rebuild their lives in safety and security. I am hoping to help them raise 65,000 US dollars to help them do that. Your generosity in helping them would be greatly appreciated. Any donation, great or small, can really make a difference collectively. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

From Maryam:

I lived through a drastic experience that writing cannot describe. I was living a quiet and stable life with my husband and family, until the genocide came to Gaza and made my life a nightmare from which I did not know how to wake up.

Since the beginning of October 2023 I did not know stability. My area was one of the areas that witnessed violent bombing from the first moment I was displaced more than 15 times to various places inside Gaza, I lost the ability to continue our Saeed Sweets project.

We lived through difficult days when we were looking for shelter and the simplest food items: flour and sugar. After more than 6 months of displacement, the danger from our area has disappeared.

While we were sitting, we were surprised by an explosion that shook the place. In the first minutes, I could not see. There was dust everywhere I got up and found my daughters coming out of their room, and sounds of screaming from above: they are my children, and the house was bombed.

My daughter Nour and I kept searching for my husband, calling and asking where he had gone, and after several minutes we found him among the rubble, with only his head and hand visible, and he had died.

The pain was enough when I leave my husband. Then, I was saddened by the injury of my eldest son, Akram, his wife, and his child, Saeed. The bombing lasted through the night and into the morning. I didn't know how I said my final farewell to my husband. I saw my son Akram with his eyes closed. His wife screamed from the pain of the burns on her body, while his son is covered with gauze with his eyes closed

Days passed that were the most difficult in our lives. My son Akram lost his eye, then Saeed recovered, and his mother stayed for a while treating her burns. A month later, we were surprised by a ground attack on the area where we were displaced. We went out and the quadcopters were above us. We began a difficult journey of displacement again. For months, we suffered from high prices of essential goods.

More than a year after the war, there was a bombing very near to us. I went out and saw my son Akram lying on the ground. We were preparing breakfast and waiting for him. I don’t know why he was targeted when he was so young. I was waiting for him to break his fast with us. I lost my husband, my son, my home, and our business.

My daughter Nour lost her job in this damned war. It's temporarily stopped now and they threaten every moment to bring it back. Help us restore hope to my life and try to support my family.