Help Support Yonas and His Family

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My name is Renn Simmons and I am a climate artist, mental health worker, and an organizer with a small mutual aid group called Portland Spiritual and Creative Integrity Collective based in Portland, Oregon. We are fundraising on behalf of Yonas and his family, all of whom are in dire need of help.

We have been fundraising for several families in G@z@ that connected with us through our Instagram account, and have been rapidly expanding our endeavors to try to create fundraisers and community initiatives to help as many families as we

are able to.

We have done our best to be as intentional, kind, and thoughtful in creating a verification process for the families we are connected to, which includes asking if someone has a form of identification, can send photos of themselves and/or have a video chat with us, and/or can be vouched for by another friend or family member of theirs. Yonas was verified through all of these means and we are in frequent contact with him as he updates us on his family and their day to day life and experiences.

Photo of Yonas's siblings, who are experiencing severe rashes and infections from unsanitary water and surrounding conditions

Right now, several of the children in Yonas's family are experiencing severe skin infections and require antibiotics and fungal cream to treat their infections. Along with everything else in G@z@, these treatments are incredibly expensive, in short supply, and are in high demand.

While these treatments are of high priority to Yonas, having money to buy food, clean drinking water, and fuel and of the highest necessity for survival, and are what your donations will help support.

To gain perspective on how expensive goods are in G@z@ right now, here are some of the market prices:

2 pounds / 1 kilogram:

Apples: $20

Oranges $20

Onions $15

Potatoes $15

Chicken $40

Combined in total, these expenses accumulate to around $3000 or more monthly for Yona's family, which means that we need 100 people a month to contribute $30 or 200 to contribute $15 a month. Please consider being a monthly contributor. We are working hard right now to finalize a this formulaic approach to fully funding families in G@z@, so please message us if you would like to a part of Yonas's permanent funding group to get more information.

Our hope is to always try to connect families in G@z@ with as many other on-the-ground organizations as possible, but we are seeing more and more that getting aid from these groups is sometimes impossible and very dangerous in terms of traveling

to find these groups and actually connecting with these groups in the first place. While NGOs still offer some forms of aid on the group, many of them continue to have their aid compromised, stripped, halted, or destroyed before getting into G@z@, so the only actual guaranteed form of support right now is often direct donations.

Donating directly to Yonas and his family is truly the only way right now we can ensure that their specific needs are being met and that they do not have to make dangerous trips to risk their lives beyond what they are already

experiencing to search for aid groups.

Please consider donating what you can, sharing his story with your circle, and amplifying his fundraiser in order to support Yonas and his family while they continue to fight to stay alive. No amount is too small to help.

Together we can give them some very small glimmer of hope in the darkest times imaginable.

All donations over $10 will receive a digital print from my website at rennsimmons.cargo.site. Just take a screenshot of your donation and message me here on GFM with the subject "Prints for Pal."

With Gratitude,

Yonas and Renn