Urgent support needed for Maher and his family in Gaza
Donation protected
My Name is Antonia and I’m raising funds for my friend and Save the Children colleague, Maher in Gaza. Maher runs Save the Children’s Gaza education programmes and I’m honoured to have spent time with him and the team there in 2019.
Maher has dedicated his life to helping children and now I’m asking for you to help him support his own. He has five children, three girls and two boys aged between 3 and 16 years old (pictured). From Gaza City, Maher and his family have been forcibly displaced twelve times in the last year. He tells me “We are living in a nightmare.”
Maher is currently sheltering in a tent by the sea (pictured below) in southern Gaza with his wife, children, his father and his brother’s family. He explained that buildings have become way too expensive to rent and that the beach, despite the cold and wind, is less at risk of airstrikes.
Maher says: “All aspects of life have become unbearable for us. There is no safe location and nowhere left to flee. We lack basic services, drinking water, food, shelter, clothes.”
The extreme shortages mean Maher is struggling to provide essentials for his children. He says: “The prices are really crazy, around $40 USD for a kilo of tomatoes if you can find them at the market. We are mainly eating beans and not much else.” Maher says families now need around $100 USD a day to be able afford the very basics.
Temperatures are plummeting with winter fast approaching. Maher sent me a recent photo (below) of his family inside their tent.
Maher sounds broken in his voice messages; he says:
“We are trying to hang on. We are not allowed to collapse or get tired we have to keep standing for our children. So we keep hoping and praying for the energy to continue. We hope this nightmare will end soon, at least for the children to feel safe.”
How will your donation help?
Maher said, “we cannot provide safety for our children, that’s out of our hands but at least to be able to provide them with food, water, warmer clothes and a dry shelter.”
Your funds will go a long way to help immediately provide essentials such as food, blankets, shelter supplies, clothes and mattresses. All donations will go directly to Maher. There are over 18 children in his extended family, currently living in unimaginable conditions.
Background:
I will never forget how hospitable and warm Maher and the whole team were when I met them in 2019. They remain unsung heroes. A highlight was when they took me to a local fish restaurant serving traditional Gazan prawns. Wherever we went my colleagues insisted on paying for my meals. Good-humoured, humble and generous is how I remember people in Gaza.
This is a private fundraiser. Maher and I are Save the Children staff, but this initiative does not involve our organisation.
Thank you in advance for your support!
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Maher is a humanitarian media spokesperson, learn more at these links:
Organizer
Antonia Roupell
Organizer
England