Help my family left behind in Afghanistan

This fundraiser is for my family in Afghanistan who my wife and I support on a monthly basis and have been actively working on evacuating out of Afghanistan since Kabul was seized by Taliban in August of 2021. Over the last two years we have been the sole provider for over 13+ people who are my siblings and parents, including young children. We held this responsibility with pride but now want to provide the opportunity for more individuals to become part of our community and story.

I am my family's lifeline in the United States and although I work full time as a Network Engineer, I am asking for help so we can evacuate them out of Afghanistan as every day that goes by the situation for women including my sisters is becoming less and less safe. Over the last two years we have constantly been dealing with devastating news back home and are a financial and emotional lifeline to my parents and little siblings. Whilst I am continuing to work my full time job in tech, whilst trying to increase my salary, as well as increase my income in other way, I have decided to lay away my pride and start a Go Fund Me page for my family as we want to enable more people to be part of our story and community during this difficult transition period.

All of this is especially difficult as we were recently able to obtain new passports for our family members and were planning to evacuate them out of Afghanistan in the coming months. We do not want to slow down our evacuation efforts as the situation in Afghanistan has become dire and some of my family members have been kidnapped by Taliban on multiple occasions because of my work with the United Nations and other unpredictable environments. These funds will solely be used to support groceries, housing, and evacuation/resettlement related costs for refugees who are my parents and siblings. We are happy to provide video updates and receipts for any donors and community members who wish to support us during this time.

If you want to learn more about our story please keep reading, otherwise I would appreciate you donating or sharing this fundraiser with anyone in your network.

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In April 2021 I left Afghanistan to marry the love of my life and start a new life together. We originally met abroad through work in 2015 and in 2018 my partner finally said "yes".

We celebrated our engagement party in my homeland Afghanistan in December of 2018 with our family and friends. I was still finishing my bachelors degree in Afghanistan so we wanted to have a long engagement. Due to the pandemic that engagement lasted much longer than expected as we, alongside the rest of the world, were social distancing and could not travel. After working with various non-profits and western companies in Afghanistan, including working with the United Nations as a Network Engineer for 3 years to set up networks in rural areas of Afghanistan I felt very confident in my ability to adjust to life in America. In April 2021 I arrived in the United States and was excited to start our new life together.

It was difficult to leave behind my family, but my fiancé and I were planning on frequently visiting as both of us had a lot of projects still in Afghanistan. You see, my partner is a Director and independent filmmaker and we met in Dubai because I started acting on television to pay for my education as I was completing a degree in Computer Science.

We always planned to have presence in our homeland and saw a future where we could even raise our children there with how our country was progressing, we even planned to build a vacation home in our homeland for our family and ourselves to use whenever we wanted.

As my partner and I were planning for our wedding we received the most devastating news on August 15th, 2021. This day and the phone call we received forever haunts me. My father called to tell me that Taliban seized Kabul. Immediately, I checked my phone to find text messages from friends and past colleagues who told me to get my family out, to delete all my social media. We immediately started reaching out to various U.S. Government contacts as well as paratroopers we were put in contact with on the ground to get them evacuated. Some of my family members also had pending SIV cases. With a lot of luck and an incredible community of supporters we were able to secure U.S. Visas for them and rush them to the airport. However, as many may have witnessed on the news the situation on the ground was escalated because of the botched evacuation that we now know as "the fall of Kabul."

During those days we would be on WhatsApp and Signal video calls with our family members as they were trying to get past the chaotic crows with visas in hand. For 11 days we had them return to the airport to try again. We even were coordinating pick ups with military but on the 11th day Abbey gate was identified as the most reliable gate that morning. Everyone we were coordinating with told us to move towards Abby gate, so we passed that information on to our family members. Our family was waiting to get past the gate but then the unthinkable happened, a bomb blast. 13 U.S. service men and women — 11 Marines, a Soldier, and a Sailor — were killed in a suicide bombing at the Abbey Gate outside Kabul's Hamid Karzai International Airport during the operation's closing days. Approximately 170 Afghan civilians died. We lost video contact with our family and were extremely worried. After several hours we were able to get back in contact with them, thankfully non of them were hurt. However, the children were telling us what happened and none of our family wanted to return to the airport again. We also could not ask them to. We continued to try to have an official escort coordinated but unfortunately due to all of the chaos everything fell through. Our families were left behind. I was here in America, in safety, about to start my new life with my love, yet the parents that raised me and the siblings that I've known my whole life lost everything they ever knew.

I come from a large family of 9 Children. 4 incredibly resilient, intelligent, and brave girls and 5 of us boys. I am the eldest son in my family. My two oldest sister were teachers, my two younger sisters were 2 weeks away from graduating law school and the other computer science. My younger siblings grew up in the era of social media, watching Youtube, TikToks, and posting on Instagram. They don't know anything about war or how to behave in the now new society the Taliban wants. Over the last two years life in Kabul has become unbearable. My sisters were let go of their teaching jobs and stopped from going to school and unable to leave their home freely. Employment is also non-existent for anyone that does not join the Taliban regime. Some of my family members, have been kidnapped by Taliban others are in hiding because of their affiliation with working alongside U.S. troops. Even as I am writing this I am not disclosing identifiable facts and hiding any identification information as every day that goes by feels like a lottery for all of their safety.

Afghanistan is not the home I once knew, a place with beautiful mountain ranges, rivers, poetry, dance, arts, and freedom but rather it is an occupied jail where it's inhabitants are waiting when it becomes their turn to go to heaven. I don't want that to be the future of my family. Although I know that it is the tragic realty and story of so many displaced people and so many Afghans, I don't want that to be the end of our story. Even now, two years later, I am on weekly calls to find ways to get them out. I've been working and saving funds the last two years, whilst also being the main financial provider for over 13 people. We have been able to miraculously secure passports for my parents and siblings and are diligently working on evacuating them to a third party country. We have also paid the U.S. Government over 15K in funds to file humanitarian parole cases, with no status updates to this day. After 2+ years of no updates and additional evacuation attempts, we planned on taking things in our hands and evacuate them into a third party country once we raise these funds. Although we’ve been carrying these responsibilities by ourselves the last 3 years, we do believe in the power of community and know that the work ahead of us should not be done alone.

Over the last three years my wife and I have been able to sustain and build an incredible life whilst managing these difficult circumstances. We had to make a lot of sacrifices such as not having a wedding but rather just a civil ceremony, not purchase a home, although we have the financial stability to do so, because we are putting our resources towards supporting my family’s living expenses and evacuation efforts, and are proud to do so. We have slowly been able to restart our careers and find some kind of work-crisis-and life balance.

Most importantly, over the last three years we wanted to do everything in our power to continue to support our family members left behind financially and getting our loved ones to safety. Never having to ask for help, certainly around finances. We have been able to turn trauma into triumph and help so many of our community in the United States who did get out of Afghanistan. Especially my wife who in the midst of the madness of August 2021 co-launched Welcome.US to support Americans across the nation who welcomed over 80,000 Afghans who were not left behind and resettled through U.S. airbases through Operations Allies Welcome.

We whole heartedly believe in the power of community and even though it is not the most ideal circumstances now, we know that more people may want to be part of our story. I don't know where all of this will take us but I never want my pride or ego to get in the way of helping my family and costing them their health and safety. I thank you for reading this far if you have made and invite any additional support you may think of. All of the funds raised from this campaign will solely be used to support family members left behind in Afghanistan and go towards evacuation/resettlement costs of those family members.