Gallery • 3 Photos

The cards are each unique. Landscape cards sell for $1.50 each.

Almost 7,000 miles away, a city under siege attempts to evacuate the citizens that are being killed without a judge. Civilians, women, children and the elderly, each living in the city they call home, the city they call Aleppo, attempt to run or hide from attacks. Many are dead or desperate for help.

To many people all over the world, their faith in humanity is dead. Protests popped up all around the world reacting to the horrors happening in the Syrian city. Senior Bushra Muzaffar started a unique way to raise money, awareness and hope for Syria. Muzaffar paints small cards, sells them for $1.00 -$5.00 and donates the profits to White Helmets, an organization dedicated to giving aid to people left in places where public services no longer function.

“I am drawing and painting cards, and then selling them and then using the money to donate to Syria,” Muzaffar said. “Specifically, I am going to donate to the White Helmets. They’re volunteers in Syria who save people who are about to die, so their last resort is to get saved by the white helmets. I think they saved like 74,000 people so far, and when I read that my heart was like, ‘Yeah, I’m going to donate there.’”

Muzaffar painted these cards originally to give to her stressed out friends during finals week, but her sister pointed out that they were good enough to pay for. She decided to sell them and donate the money for a cause she believed in.

“I felt really guilty being both Muslim and in America because I wasn’t doing anything,” Muzaffar said. “I know there are things people do like protests, but I felt like that wasn’t doing anything personal for the people. And even when I do donate it’s not that much because I am not rich. I feel like I’m putting myself to use and helping them. It’s different because I know you can write to politicians or protest, but this feels more personal.”

As attacks rain down on Aleppo, people use social media to say their last goodbye, or to request aid from other countries. Each person can do a little in their own way to raise money, but more importantly hope for people affected by the Syrian war.

“When I started actively painting them, I was thinking about how there’s no faith in humanity left,” Muzaffar said. “I started to think about how people hit rock bottom but when I started to paint, because paintings therapeutic for me, I realized that when things hit rock bottom it can’t go any more down. Painting and trying raise money, and in a way awareness, was rising back up.”