Dawada has already lost both of his parents and his grandmother. Now, the aunty he is sheltering — a widow with three young children, including a baby — is in critical condition and needs urgent heart surgery. The hospital requires £2,600–£2,780 for the operation to begin. If she doesn’t get the help she needs, there is a high risk she could suffer a heart attack.
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What Happened
Dawada’s aunty has been diagnosed with cardiogenic shock, which has caused severe headaches, dizziness, chest pain, and dangerously low blood pressure.
Doctors say she urgently needs a coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) to restore blood flow to her heart and reduce her chest pain and shortness of breath.
For now, doctors are stabilising and managing her condition — but without the funds, they can’t move forward with the surgery. In the UK, this same operation would cost between £16,000 and £40,000, but in The Gambia it’s approximately £2,600–£2,780.
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Where Will the Funds Go
All funds will go directly towards Dawada’s aunty’s surgery and treatment.
(Only GoFundMe and Western Union transfer fees will be deducted.)
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If you would like to avoid the Gofundme fee, as well as the delay in withdrawing funds from Gofundme (5 -7 business days) and you would like to get the money sooner to Dawada's aunty, you can send the funds directly to my bank account and I will then send the funds to Dawada through an international payment transfer website. Either way the money will go into my bank account and then I will send it to Dawada (so I would prefer the bank transfer as it is faster to then send the money); however It is up to you what you prefer. Please see my bank details below:
Please reference it as: Dawada's Aunt Aid
Name: MR J A S RAJA
Account Type: Personal
Account Number: 25873882
Sort Code: 23-05-80
For payments from outside the UK
SWIFT/BIC: MYMBGB2L
IBAN: GB50MYMB 230580 25873882
How I Know Dawada
Dawada got my number through a group chat and reached out for help. Over time, we’ve spoken multiple times, and I’ve come to understand his situation — he’s a young man in his early 20s who has taken on the responsibility of caring for his younger siblings and now his widowed aunty and her children.
Why can’t Dawada pay himself?
Despite his efforts, Dawada lives in deep poverty. He tries to earn what he can by chopping wood and selling it locally, but his small income barely covers daily essentials. One only has to look at the poverty rate in The Gambia (53.4% in 2020, World Food Programme) to get an idea of why someone might not have sufficient funds for basic necessities.
Even basic food and rent have become difficult to afford, and at times he and his siblings have been forced to move from place to place because they couldn’t pay for accommodation. There’s simply no way he can raise the kind of money needed for a heart operation.
How do you know you can trust him?
I built a relationship with Dawada over multiple video phone calls, and aside from the sense of his genuineness from his character, his story seems consistent with whatever I have been able to research.
To verify this situation, I personally called the hospital he mentioned — their Public Relations Officer confirmed that Dawada's aunt has been admitted to that hospital.
In the past I have even asked the head of an NGO in The Gambia (formerly with Human Relief Foundation) to speak with Dawada directly. He did this, and did not raise any red flags or concerns about Dawada being a fraud or some kind of con artist.
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Why This Matters
It’s not difficult to accept that these people really need our help. For us, it might be just a small decrease in our bank balance — but for them, it could mean saving a life, saving a family, and preserving their future.
Organizer
Junaid Raja
Organizer