Rohingya Genocide Awareness Campaign & Fundraiser
Photography Mini-Sessions by Lauren Beischer to Benefit Rise for Rohingya
Thank you for visiting this page. The fundraiser has concluded and I’m happy to say that the goal of $2,000 was surpassed!
Putting on this fundraiser was an experience. I didn’t really know how it was going to go. I didn’t think anyone would really care too much about the fundraiser itself. I thought people would jump on the minis and they would book up quickly because people love saving money. Then I thought, “Well, $100 for a ten minute session with the promise of ten photos isn’t really that cheap. Plenty of photographers out there will offer more for less.” So I just didn’t know. I didn’t know how things would go.
I learned that everyone who participated cared about the fundraiser. Everyone brought it up at one point or another. It was really an encouraging feeling when that happened. As far as the minis being pricey, well, a lot of people donated beyond the $100 minimum for their session as well. I only shot 13 mini sessions but raised $1,825 from bookings. The math is simple. Special thank you shout out to the people who donated without booking a session. $435 came in that way and pushed us past the goal.
I think the most moving moments were when kids decided to open their piggy banks and donate too. Three beautiful young souls contributed and I still feel speechless over that.
So, thank you for helping make this happen. Part of the goal was to raise awareness, so thank you to the people who took time to read about it, comment on my posts, or share the posts to their own pages. Thank you to the people who made donations without booking a mini, thank you to the people who booked minis, thank you to the people who made extra donations on top of that, and thank you to the parents out there for raising such amazing kids who, at such a young age, feel compassion for strangers on the other side of the world and want to help. Thank you to all of you. You have all helped in your own way to make a small repair to our broken world. Thank you.
Donors
Angela Sielski / Chung Leung / Debbie Oviedo / Emily Thaden / Erica Nonni / Gita Carlton / Jen Zimmerman / Jessica Rendeiro / Jessica Tayts / Karen Calantoni / Kelli Goldenberg / Kelly Raven / Maryellen Brown / Michelle Ginfrida / Michelle Drapkin Clarke / Olga Levinson / Payton Farkas / Rachel Herman / Rachel Kohler / Richele Wisniewski / Sheera Stern / Stacy Lieb / Teresa Horgan / Whitney Guhin / Will Vargas
“The Rohingya people, a Muslim-minority group, are currently facing systematic persecution in Myanmar. This has resulted in the forced migration of more than a million Rohingya Muslims to Bangladesh, with the number increasing each day. The UN describes this Rohingya Refugee Crisis as “a textbook example of ethnic cleansing.”
Our non-profit campaign is committed to positively impacting the Rohingya Refugee Community in Bangladesh. The goal is to support the most vulnerable segments of the Rohingya Camps, which we have identified to be children and pregnant women. We aim to do this by partnering up with organizations that are actively working at the ground level.”
In 2017 I read a piece on the silence of the refugee camps of the Rohingya. It spoke of an eerie silence despite the crowded conditions. All one could hear was soft weeping here or there, punctuated by sudden wails crying out to God. The writer shared the stories of a few of the victims. One story stuck with me.
TW: Violence, death of a child
One mother told the story of her three year old son being ripped from her arms, stabbed in the stomach, and tossed onto a pile of burning refuse. She wept, “I will never hear him call out ‘mama’ again.”
I never forgot her words. When news broke of the recent military coup in Myanmar, of course I thought of her. I wondered how she was doing. I thought of the unknown Rohingya families still in within the borders of their home country, still under the very real threat of genocide. Once again, I felt helpless.
I am Jewish, and I very much live with the intergenerational trauma of the Holocaust. It’s easy to think of the past and wonder why people didn’t do more. It’s easy to be baffled at the stories that came out about the horrors of the Holocaust. How could the German citizens let these things happen to their neighbors? How could the citizens of the world tolerate it and turn a blind eye toward it? Well, as it turns out, it is frighteningly easy. It’s happening so far away. I’m no politician. Who would listen to my voice? There’s nothing I can do.
Well, there is a particular ugliness to being a Jewish person in the world and not doing whatever you can to fight modern genocides.
On April 10th and 11th, 2021, I will be fundraising for Rise for Rohingya. Mini-session marathons will be scheduled from 9am-11:45am and 4-6:45pm. Saturday will be at the Rudolf W. van der Goot Rose Garden in Colonial Park in Somerset, NJ, and Sunday will be at Tommy’s Pond in Metuchen, NJ. Donors will receive 10 images from their session and sessions may last up to 10 minutes. The minimum donation for a session is $100, although donors are welcome to make a larger donation if they wish. All money will go directly to Rise for Rohingya. I will cover my own expenses out of my own pocket. My goal is to raise $2,000.
Times slots are first come, first serve. No limit to number of people (or furry family members) in the group. Donors who miss their appointment may return at the end of the block for their session. Rain dates are April 24th-25th.
30% non-refundable deposit due at booking. In order to have all donations go to Rise for Rohingya and not payment processing fees, payments can be made in the following ways:
Venmo: @Lauren-Beischer
Paypal: laurenbeischer@gmail.com (be sure to select “send to friends and family”)
Cash or check: Contact me for my mailing address.
Fill out the form below to get started. Thank you for doing your part to help victims of ethnic cleansing.
The Rose Garden, August 2019
