Hello friend! Peace and blessings be upon you!

Welcome to my fundraising page for Student Action with Farmworkers, and thank you for joining me on this journey.

I am so grateful to be a Solidaridad intern this year for Student Action with Farmworkers! This semester is almost over and I have learned so much in these past few months. I come from parents who spent their childhood in India, a country for which agriculture is the primary source of livelihood for 58% of the population. However, prior to joining Student Action with Farmworkers I knew nothing about the injustice in the agricultural system, farmworker rights, or where the food on my table came from.

At orientation, we did an activity called Farmworker Voices where we read the real stories of real farmworkers in a theater exercise. Several months later, I still reference this document because the voices stayed in my head. I especially cannot forget the story of a man who had a John Deere tractor run over his foot by accident while he was on the job. His employer, the owner of the farm, deliberately ignored his injuries and did not provide him basic medical care. The man was not in a position to stop working because he needed money to survive, so he kept working on his injured foot. He was taking half a bottle of Advil a day to suppress the pain, leading to substance abuse and addiction.

The work that we do at Student Action with Farmworkers aims to uplift farmworker voices by listening to and sharing their stories. We work towards breaking the cycle of exploitation and oppression. Please support our work through a donation, and help me achieve my goal of $450!

In Solidarity,

Salma Syed