📚📖🔖🎒 Help Me Build an Elementary School for the Orphans of Gaza

Six classrooms. Six washrooms. Solar support. A safe courtyard. Space for 270 children to learn, heal, & rebuild! Thank you for your kindness and generosity! We literally cannot do this without you!!

As-Salaam-Alaikum and good evening from New Jersey to each of you!

Gaza’s children have not just been bombed, starved, displaced, and orphaned….

They have been robbed of the most basic human need for an education.

And I need us to do something concrete, beautiful, and urgent about it.

Today, with Human Concern International, we are launching a new campaign to build schools for orphaned children in Gaza — children ages 5–9, serving Grades 1, 2, and 3.

Please donate now to help us build this school for Gaza’s orphans.

This campaign is Zakat-verified, organized by Human Concern International, listed a registered charity, and verified for authenticity on LaunchGood.

And I want you to understand what we are building.

Not an idea.

Not a slogan.

Not a vague dream.

A real school.

A safe, structured, dignified learning space for orphaned children in Gaza who have already lost more than any child should ever be asked to endure.

A School Is Not Just a Building

By now, you probably know that Gaza’s schools have been devastated.

But the numbers are still hard to absorb.

UN experts warned in April of 2024 that more than 80% of schools in Gaza had been damaged or destroyed, raising grave concern over what they called the possible “scholasticide” of Gaza — the systematic destruction of an education system. That was 2 years ago.

By 2025, OCHA reported that 501 out of 564 schools in Gaza — nearly 88.8% — would require full reconstruction or major rehabilitation to become functional again.

UNICEF has since reported that most of Gaza’s 658,000 school-age children have had limited access to face-to-face learning for more than two academic years, and that the education system is on the brink of collapse.

Sisters and brothers, that is not just a crisis.

That is a deliberate wound to the future.

Because one way to destroy a people is to destroy their schools.

Kill the teachers and slaughter the principals.

Flatten the classrooms.

Scatter the children.

Erase the normal rhythms of reading, writing, math, science, faith, play, friendship, and childhood itself.

And then tell the world it was all unavoidable.

It was not.

And now we have to help Gaza rebuild.

Please give whatever you can today to help build this school.

The Orphaned Children We Are Starting With

This first school is being designed for orphaned children ages 5–9, serving Grades 1, 2, and 3.

These are children who should have been learning their letters.

Their numbers.

Their first Qur’an lessons.

Their first science lessons.

Their first friendships.

Their first routines of school life.

Instead, many of them have spent the past three years learning the sounds of drones, bombs, hunger, grief, displacement, and death.

I need you to sit with that for a moment.

A 7-year-old child in Gaza today may have missed nearly the entire foundation of early education.

A 9-year-old may have gone from childhood into survival mode without the basic continuity every child deserves.

And for orphaned children, the wound is even deeper.

They are not only trying to catch up academically. They are trying to rebuild their inner world after losing the people, places, and protections that once made life feel safe.

That is why this school is being designed not just as a place to teach.

It is being designed as a place to help children learn, play, heal, and feel human again.

What We Are Building

The first school will include 6 fully equipped classrooms with the capacity to serve approximately 270 children, around 45 students per classroom.

The school will also include 6 washrooms, each with its own separate exterior entrance, an administrative office, a teachers’ room, a dedicated counsellor’s space, solar power support, electrical infrastructure, secure perimeter fencing, and an outdoor artificial grass play area.

The classrooms will be furnished with student benches, teacher desks, whiteboards, and essential educational materials.

The courtyard will give children a safe place to move, play, gather, breathe, and remember that childhood is not supposed to be lived under rubble.

The counsellor’s space matters deeply to me.

Because these children do not only need lessons.

They need care.

They need adults who can help them process grief.

They need a place where their pain is not ignored.

They need structure, tenderness, and stability.

And the solar support matters because Gaza’s power infrastructure has been shattered. A school cannot depend on ideal conditions. It has to be built for the reality on the ground.

That is what we are trying to do here.

A real school.

A functional school.

A dignified school.

A school designed for Gaza as Gaza actually is right now.

Please donate here to help us build it.

One School, Then Another, Insha’Allah

This is the first school.

Not the last.

Once we build this one, we want to build another.

And another.

And another.

Because Gaza does not need one classroom.

Gaza needs an entire education system rebuilt from the ashes.

And I know the scale of that can feel overwhelming. I know it can feel too big. I know it can make people freeze.

But we do not have to solve everything today to do something meaningful today.

We start with one school.

One safe place.

One group of orphaned children.

One set of classrooms.

One courtyard.

One daily rhythm of learning.

One real answer to a real wound.

And then we keep going.

That is how rebuilding works.

That is how mercy works.

That is how solidarity works.

This Is Zakat-Verified

For Muslims who are giving Zakat, this campaign is listed as Zakat-verified on LaunchGood.

That matters.

Zakat is not charity in the casual sense. It is one of the pillars of Islam. It is an obligation Allah placed on us so that wealth does not simply circulate among the comfortable while the most vulnerable are abandoned.

And sadaqah — voluntary charity — is also beloved to Allah, especially when it protects the vulnerable, feeds the hungry, shelters the displaced, and restores dignity to those who have been crushed by injustice.

These children are orphans.

They are displaced.

They are living through one of the great crimes of our lifetime.

And they deserve more than pity.

They deserve a future.

Please give your Zakat or sadaqah now through this verified campaign.

What Your Donation Makes Possible

Your donation helps create a school with:

• 6 classrooms serving approximately 270 children

• Grades 1, 2, and 3 for children ages 5–9

• 6 washrooms with separate exterior entrances

• Student benches, teacher desks, whiteboards, and learning materials

• Administrative office, teachers’ room, and counsellor space

• Solar power support and electrical infrastructure

• Secure perimeter fencing

• Outdoor artificial grass play area where children can learn, play, and heal

That is what your donation is helping build.

A place where orphaned children can sit at a desk again.

Open a book again.

Hear a teacher call their name again.

Raise their hand again.

Play safely again.

Laugh without feeling guilty again.

Begin again.

I Need Us to Move

I am asking every single person reading this to give something.

Do not wait.

Do not overthink it.

Do not assume someone else will carry this.

If you can give $10, give $10.

If you can give $50, give $50.

If you can give $100, give $100.

If Allah has blessed you with more, give more.

And if you cannot give much, give what you can and share this with people who can help.

Please donate now to help build this school for Gaza’s orphans.

This is one of those projects that is simple to understand.

The schools were destroyed.

The children were orphaned.

The future was attacked.

So we build.

We build with love.

We build with urgency.

We build with receipts.

We build with trusted partners on the ground.

We build because Gaza’s children deserve more than survival.

They deserve dignity.

They deserve education.

They deserve a future.

And with Allah’s help, we are going to help give them one.

Donate here now. Help us build the first school for Gaza’s orphans.

And after you give, please forward this to 3 people who care about Gaza, children, education, and justice.

Love and appreciate each of you.
Your friend and brother,
Shaun