HELP TRANSGENDER SUDANESE REFUGEES IN GOROM CAMP!
hi guys, i'm writing this on behalf of @muhshinmagala Magala Muhshin (Said), who is in Gorom camp, South Sudan.
i've posted and reblogged posts about her campaign before, but i wanted to make a new one so everyone could be up to speed, because she is in DIRE need of help, and her campaign is totally dead in the water right now.
Magala reached out to me about a week ago, asking me for help, via tumblr. while i was at first cautious, i wanted to hear her out, because i perused her account and saw all the pictures she posted, and all the information about her situation that she shared. i asked if she could give me something to verify her story, and not only did she show me identification, but she actually video called me on whatsapp. i saw her face, i spoke to her, she let me hear the stories of some of her fellow LGBT community members within the camp, and she walked me around the perimeter of the refugee camp, and all the way to the entrance, where i saw with my own eyes the sign for the Gorom refugee camp.
in the camp, they lack almost everything one might need or want to live life at the most bare minimum of levels. when i spoke to them, they told me they hadn't eaten for a week, and the week before that, all they could find to eat was banana peels. their camp members are frail and slender, some of them are beginning to lose hair and have their skin texture change due to malnourishment. it's heartbreaking. water is difficult to get as well, especially considering how many members of their group are sick, either with HIV or cholera. their shelters are incredibly makeshift, and not only that but due to their gender and sexual identities, people come by and rip their shelters up. other camp members who aren't LGBT single them out and assault and abuse them. one of their camp members showed me her cracked, broken, and chipped teeth from the last time a group of people attacked her when she was outside. they even lack beds to lay their sick on, and mosquito nets to protect them from getting further diseases. they have a baby in their group, only 2, who was so badly burned recently that the burns extended past her skin into her internal organs and needs surgery, but the only hospital that will help them with the burns (or even with the medicine required for treating HIV) is very expensive. you can see images and videos of this on her account, and on the website i linked above.
this is a real campaign, these are real people. they have stories to tell, and they want anyone to listen to them. where they are there is no support, none of them can get jobs because they are so heavily discriminated against. several of them have been beaten, and are in need of latent medical care, like the trans woman i spoke of above, who is in pain every day from her broken teeth. many of them are HIV positive and are in dire need of ARVs, but have no food or water to take them with, which is a requirement in the state their bodies are in, and no money to purchase the $500 ARVs with. one member told me of his struggles as a trans man, and how frustrated he was with his life. he told me he was so tired, and i could tell he just wanted somebody to listen to his story. this was recurring with all of their stories -- they just want support. they want somebody to listen. they're all so burnt out from their struggles that it's impossible to support one another fully.
one person told me that when their family in kenya found out they were gay, they tried to take them to the police. they had to flee to sudan, which they thought would be safer, but they ended up immediately in the camp, and have been abused and neglected since then, unable to find anything else to go to. so many people had stories of assault to tell me. it broke my heart. these people need our support so, so badly.
i'm writing this post out, with all these links, so you can see and hear the stories that i have seen and heard. this is heart breaking. they need money NOW to save the baby, to save themselves, just to eat. please, please, please reblog, share this, donate as much as you can. we need to help these people -- they're our brothers, our sisters, our siblings.
