A Day Left to Help Um Rayan Stand on Her Own Feet
A mother in Gaza trying to escape the humiliation of begging online just to feed her kids
I don’t usually write full articles for fundraisers this small. Most of the time, a couple of notes are enough to raise a few hundred dollars. But this time, the campaign isn’t moving, and we’re running out of time. We have one day left to help Um Rayan.
The person managing this campaign is someone I know personally. He isn’t Palestinian — he’s someone who has been helping Palestinians for years — and because of that work, he’s been hit with nonstop banking obstacles. Fundraisers get blocked. Accounts get frozen. Transfers get questioned. Anything connected to Palestinians is treated with suspicion. He’s tried every workaround he could think of, and every path has been shut down. That’s why he’s giving notice that this campaign, like the others he manages, will be closing soon. But every dollar donated will reach the families before he shuts everything down.
Now, look at who this is for. Look at Um Rayan.
She isn’t asking to live off charity.
She isn’t asking for comfort.
She isn’t asking for anything extravagant.
She wants to work. She wants to earn. She wants to feed her children without having to go on social media every single day, begging strangers around the world for a few dollars so they can eat. That is the part people don’t understand — the daily humiliation, the exposure, the desperation of having to publicly plead for survival.
It takes at least fifty dollars a day just to feed her family at the bare minimum.
When you look at it that way, the five hundred dollars she’s asking for isn’t “extra.” It’s not a luxury. It’s a lifeline. It’s a chance to break the cycle of daily begging and stand on her own two feet.
She needs five hundred dollars to start a tiny stall. That’s it. A stall that would let her earn enough to feed her children without having to beg online every day for ten, twenty, fifty dollars just to survive another twenty‑four hours.
If ten percent of the subscribers who usually read these articles donated just one dollar, we would more than get this done.
And yes — some people might think a stall isn’t “urgent” compared to food, water, or medical care. But this is about survival. This is about dignity. This is about giving a mother in Gaza the ability to earn her own income so she doesn’t have to beg for her children’s next meal. She is choosing long‑term stability over immediate relief, even though her family needs both.
Living through genocide is already dehumanizing enough. Being hunted, bombed, displaced — and then having to beg publicly for your children’s survival — is an indignity no one should have to endure. If we can lift even one family out of that cycle, we should.
This isn’t a huge amount. I’m not asking for thousands. I’m asking for five hundred dollars — because that’s all it takes to give one family a chance to stand on their own feet.
If you can donate, please do.
If you can’t, sharing still helps.
Campaign link:
https://chuffed.org/project/ebtihalemrayan