More Than A Refugee Startup

Hello!
First and foremost I want to thank you very much for visiting More Than A Refugee's gofundme page :)

 My name is Valeriana Chikoti-Bandua, I am a human rights advocate, humanitarian, blogger and global citizen.  And on November the 16th of 2016 I took a huge step of faith, as I walked across the TEDx stage, in Miami Florida and began to tell my audience my truth as a former refugee girl child. Since my TED talk,  I have received an outpouring of support and feedback from all over the world, from young women and men who have shared their stories and more importantly told their truth. I was struck by the stories I heard, but also by the courage people have had shown me by stepping forward and no longer seeing themselves as victims but as survivors. 

For the past 5 years, I have been in the works to create my own non-profit organization called More Than A Refugee. An organization aimed at championing, collaborating and creating opportunities for marginalized populations. Primarily for the girl child, women refugees, asylum seeks, immigrants, internally displaced people and those living in marginalized situations.  

As a starting initiative, my amazing team members and I put together 210 sanitary female products and chocolates with notes in gift bags in late November of 2016. We successfully gifted 90 sanitary products to homeless women at the Samaritan Shelter in White Plains New York. This month we are looking to make the remainder of our 120 sanitary products and chocolate donations at a non-profit organization in Dallas, Texas.

More Than A Refugee specifically serves to provide sustainable outcomes through these three main initiatives: 

1. An Education Initiative

2. A Social Awareness Initiative

3. An Empowerment Initiative

Donations made to MTAR startup will go to cover:

1.  MTAR’s Start-up costs & legal fees
2. Monthly sanitary and hygiene kits provided to refugee and marginalized communities 
3. Local and global and community outreach through humanitarian initiatives
4. Sound and technical equipment used to share updates on initiatives carried out 
5. Travel costs to reach affected populations with humanitarian donations
6. MTAR merchandise to sustain ongoing month to month program initiatives.

I am so thankful for your time, and I am humbled by any and all support. Whether you simply watched my TED Talk, shared this gofund me link via social media, told a friend and or donated a $5 or decided to contact me with creative ideas.

I am a firm believer that it takes a global village to provoke serious change in our local and global community in order to produce sustainable outcomes, that confront and address the plight of those who struggle to be championed in the midst of their adverse circumstances.

Thank You!!

For the sake of transparency please be advised that monetary donations for this MTAR startup campaign, will go directly to the bank account step up through simple bank via our square space website directly to our financial controller listed for our More Than Refugee Team: Jordan White
Using simple bank allows for transparency as it lists any and all expenses that will channeled for MTAR. As I will not have direct access to the funding, as my team and I will collectively make decisions for the allocation of all funding for transparency sake.
 
For more information please be sure to contact me via my website: www.iamvaleriana.com