Hearts for Gaza
I, Chloè Charody am the founder of Hearts for Gaza. I am also the granddaughter of Jewish Holocaust survivors who experienced an evil none of us ever imagined would happen again, yet here we are. And it is the pain of my grandparents that I am seeing being manipulated to justify the perpetration of that same despicable evil today. This is why we must come together to not only support our friends in Palestine, Lebanon, Sudan, Iran, The Congo & in so many places across the world, but to support each other in our collective fight against grave injustice.
Perhaps like many of you , in October 2023 as we started witnessing the beginnings of the genocide in Gaza, powered on by Western Media, I felt at a loss. I was however, very lucky to have a friend like Keyna Wilkins who introduced me to my now dear friend Shadi Salem - a young academic from North Gaza who happened to travel to Malaysia before October 7 and has since not been able to get back to his family, including his wife and two infant children.
After several calls with Shadi, he and I came up with a plan to create an aid project run by his brother, wife, cousins and friends who were sheltering in a bombed out school in North Gaza. As the whole “Hearts for” thing was a craze, and the Western Media were doing their best to label every Palestinian child a terrorist, I thought “Hearts for Gaza” seemed appropriate.
So in North Gaza, at this one bombed out school where over 1000 people were sheltering is where Hearts for Gaza began. We started off by bringing in water tanks, food, clothes, distributing cash to families and orphans in hospitals as well as throwing parties for children to lift their moral.
For the big hearts that are able to fundraise for us, please feel free to download our information sheet.
People with very big hearts across the world started putting on fund-raising concerts and it was this money, combined with the generosity of many big hearts that have become regular donors, that enabled me to expand Hearts for Gaza, building more teams in North Gaza as well as South Gaza and Gaza City.
Currently I have built 6 teams across Gaza, each run by some of the bravest and kindest people I have ever known. Their humility, strength and generosity in the face of the most unimaginable pain is nothing short of awe-inspiring.
I work weekly with each team who respond directly to the needs of the people around them, sourcing and distributing whatever food, medicine and water we can find, running bakeries, clothing warehouses and kitchens that travel to areas most established aid organisations are not able to reach.
If you are in a position to contribute directly to our efforts, please visit our chuffed site:
https://www.chuffed.org/project/109308-hearts-for-gaza
We cannot thank you enough for your support.
In solidarity,
Chloé Charody.
