Evacuate type designer Hasan Abu Afash from Gaza
Donation protected
My name is Jan Gerner and I go by the artist name Yanone on the internet. I’m German and a renowned freelance type designer, software developer and font engineer. I have worked for clients such as Bold Monday, Monotype, Google Fonts, among many others.
(I wrote the above to build trust in case you don’t know me, not to drop names or advertise.)
This is about Gaza-based type designer Hasan Abu Afash who’s desperately looking for the financial means to escape the hell of Gaza into safety and prosperity for him and his family.
Yesterday morning, this mass email from him reached me:
He’s living in a tent in Rafah without water or electricity and needs at least $30,000 as “escort security” just to be able to cross the Rafah border into Egypt. Substantially more money is needed to reach Cairo and settle there temporarily, possibly pick up work again and most importantly, re-establish the continuation of his children’s education.
I’m communicating with him through email and messenger, but the contact is rare and sparse.
I am taking it upon myself to collect funds through this campaign and forward them to his preferred destination, such as the two methods mentioned in the email. I will regularly post updates as to his whereabouts as far as communication is possible.
Who should fund:
If you’re a type designer, typographer, or institution in this field, this is your opportunity to help a colleague of yours, a real person and his family reach safety, or even just survive. As we all know, Israel is planning an attack on Rafah as we speak, and no one has any idea whether it will commence before or after the beginning of Ramadan (March 9th) or how bloody it will be.
We are specifically looking at institutions and well-established professionals to support this campaign with larger sums of money to reach the goals. Obviously, smaller donations help just as well.
How urgent is the campaign:
If I were to assess the urgency of this, I would call it a matter of life and death.
How risky is your contribution:
I stand with my name and reputation for correctly transferring the funds to Hasan. The likelihood of his survival is obviously not in our hands. In the tragic event that they can’t make it out of Gaza alive, I will either try to return the funds to you to the best of my abilities, or we can together decide what else to do with them. There are surely other worthy causes for donations, but I will not make any such decisions on my own, and more importantly, not plan for this option now.
You also need to be aware of the risk of me sending the funds over to him and then communication breaking up, or him and his family not being able to cross the border any longer, as the situation in Rafah is highly volatile and unpredictable. There might be risk scenarios where the funds are gone from my account but will not reach their goal as intended. As far as I can tell, the safety and prosperity of Hasan’s family is in gods hands alone.
How much funding is needed:
As previously discussed, $5,000 per person ($30,000 in total) is needed as a first step to just reach freedom and safety in Egypt. Afterwards, he thinks of reaching Cairo and settling there temporarily. Additional funding is needed to rent an apartment, re-establish education for his children, and move on with live, possibly settle in another country.
So other than the aforementioned $30,000, and in lack of elaborate conversations with him, I’m entirely making these goals up as I go:
- initial $30,000 just to reach safety
- additional $30,000 ($60,000 total) to temporarily settle in Cairo for a while and not have to worry about immediately returning to work
- additional $40,000 ($100,000 total) to ensure the continuation of his children’s education for a while
- anything in excess of that will help in establishing a new life, possibly in another country of his choice
In other words, I believe $60,000 for the first two steps should be the absolute minimal campaign goal here to assure their safe arrival in Cairo and some months of relief and resettling into their new lives.
This campaign has a flexible funding goal, meaning that all donations will be payed out to Hasan even if the set goal isn’t reached.
Please note that, given my German nationality, campaign goals and donations are displayed in € while Hasan is asking for $. Given that their exchange rate is very close at the moment, we’re going to treat the two currencies as interchangeable for the time being.
I have previously donated to him via Paypal after after the initial posts you made. What do I do?
Donate some more.
I need to hire an Arabic type designer. Do you think he’s a good fit?
After all of this is over, I absolutely expect all of you to shower him in well-funded Arabic type design collaborations and commissions.
How do I know this is not a scam?
Please check the website links at the bottom to inform yourself about Hasan’s work.
Furthermore, I’m currently in communication with GoFundMe’s legal compliance team who will issue a document proving the legitimacy of the campaign from their side. I will post the document here as soon as I have it.
About Hasan Abu Afash:
Very little personal information can be found about him on the internet. He mostly posts images of his work. Personally I find many of his Arabic fonts rather gorgeous. So below you find a selection of his work along with links for further study.
He has collaborated with big names such as Mamoun Sakkal and has contributed the Arabic to Parachute’s DIN interpretation PF DIN Arabic.
Links:
Hiba Studio, his work
Update:
Meanwhile, Hasan has sent me a few photos showing
- their apartment before they fled to Rafah
- the family in Rafah before they could find a shelter
- and finally the shelter they currently live in
Organizer
Jan Gerner
Organizer
Berlin
