Hey all, Nabeela here --

Last November I signed up to run the 2022 Chicago Marathon. On of the long list of wild ideas I've come up with over the years, this may be among the wildest,  considering I was really out of shape and I've also never ran a race longer than a 10k...yikes. Like, half marathon? We don't know her.

Anyway, running a marathon has always been on my bucket list. And, after my grandfather passed away in 2018, my brother and I discussed how it might be nice to run a race in his honor and raise money for a cause he would care about. Cue: the Palestine Children's Relief Fund, a non-profit providing medical and humanitarian relief to the youngest and most vulnerable victims of the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

I'm not usually one to share goals widely, preferring to keep them close to my heart until they are accomplished. But this whole marathon thing is a goal I could use some help with from friends and family. I'm running with the Palestine Children's Relief Fund, and my team is specifically raising money for PCRF's Gaza Pediatric Mental Health Initiative. A lot of us have personal experience with mental health struggles, and in the last couple years a growing amount of the population has more personally understood the importance of mental health care, especially in a time so full of unprecedented events, sadness, isolation, and violence. The thing is--while these feelings are overwhelming, for a lot of us they are also new. So many of us have never before been so restricted in our mobility (I, for one, had never before been told by my government where I could go or who I should see), we haven't had to fight over toilet paper, and we have not otherwise lived in warlike conditions, wondering if and when the world as we know it might return to normal. For the children of Gaza, however, none of this is new. Most of these children have endured psychological trauma we may never understand, and as completely innocent bystanders in a political conflict they have nothing to do with, they do not deserve the cards that they have been dealt. They deserve to be children and they deserve our support.

If you are so inclined, I'd love for you to join me on this journey of providing youth in Gaza with access to mental health services, so that they may have a fighting chance to combat the negative psychological impacts of what they have been through. Any amount helps, and if you're strapped for cash, a share with your circle also means the world.

If you made it this far, thanks for reading and for being there for me. 

-Nabeela