A Tragedy of Visas - Help Emily Finish her PhD

It's a story we've all heard before: student gets accepted to a degree program abroad, student moves abroad to begin degree program...student gets told there's an issue with their visa and they have to go home. But if student goes home, they can't afford to get back to school.

This time, it happened to my friend Emily.

Emily is a classically trained actor/singer and director, specializing in Shakespeare and new verse. She is the former Executive Director and Founder of TURN TO FLESH PRODUCTIONS in New York, which develops "new Shakespeare plays" for everybody Shakespeare *didn't* write for. In addition, she is a playwright, fantasy author, and respected voice in the growing academic world of new verse plays.

Earlier this summer, Emily was accepted to the University of Birmingham for her PhD, as part of the Shakespeare Institute in Stratford-upon-Avon. When her lease in New York ended, she packed up and moved to England to begin searching out housing, building her professional network, and getting onboarded for school. Unfortunately, the university had not given her the information for her student visa by the time she arrived, so her initial stay was on a visitor/travel visa.

When Emily finally received the student visa information and went to complete her paperwork and pay the visa fee of $500, two things happened:

1) Emily was required to enter some information for a mandatory health surcharge.

The added price? $2650.18, more than Emily currently has in the bank. The fee MUST be paid all at once; if you don't have the full amount, you can't apply.

2) Emily was informed that she cannot transfer directly from a travel visa to a student visa in-country, and will have to return to the United States during the waiting period. Plane tickets currently run in the $1500 - $3000 range. Returning to the U.S. would, much like paying the visa cost, wipe out Emily's funds.

This is where I (and hopefully all of you) come in.

If you believe in the value of the arts, in the value of education, and in making opportunities for low-income folks to achieve their dreams, please consider donating to help cover the cost of Emily's visa. She's an incredible teacher, writer, arts advocate, and human being, and it would mean everything to her (and to me) for her to be able to complete her PhD.

We're hoping to raise approximately $3000 to cover the visa fee + health surcharge, while Emily uses what remaining money she has to return home from the UK in the interim, as required. Anything over the $3000 mark will go towards plane tickets, baggage costs, taxi fare, and the mandatory biometrics that are part of the visa process.

Thank you in advance. <3

Photo Credits: Emily! At the Dirty Duck, where the famous UK actors used to come and hang out after shows, and the Royal Shakespeare Center cafe.