Fund evacuations from Gaza with ETH - ethevacuations.xyz
I spoke to Kat (katalunia.eth) who is behind a project called ETH Evacuations which is taking donations to pay for families to get out of Gaza through the Rafah crossing. Kat is a product manager and startup builder, most recently Head of Product at Zora and travelled to Gaza in June 2023 to be a mentor in product management for the community at Gaza Sky Geeks. She is accepting ether and other tokens on the Ethereum mainnet, Optimism, or Base so that she can get the money directly to those ...
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Alright. Hi, everyone. You're listening to the Blockchain Socialist Podcast. And today, I'm here with Kat. She is someone's been working on a project called ETH Evacuations. It's essentially offering a way for people to give crypto to fund the evacuations of those currently trapped in Gaza and the ongoing genocide. And I recently came across Kat and her work, and as soon as I found out what it was and did my appropriate kind of social proof checking, I found it very important that I needed to have Kat on the podcast as soon as possible so that we can do what we can to help fund these to get people out of Gaza or what's going on right now. But so maybe to explain what you're doing, essentially, in short, it's people can give crypto, and then that crypto will go to whoever is needed to get people out and get them evacuated from Gaza. But maybe before we get to that, I think it'd be interesting if you want to share with us your just an introduction, how you came to know about Gaza and the situation there and your connections.
Yeah, for sure. Thanks for having me on. So, yeah, I'm Kat. I'm a product person based in Berlin. I've been working in tech for the last twelve years. Last couple of years I was working in crypto. And yeah, I first, my first introduction to Gaza and Palestine in general was back in 2007 during the siege of Gaza when the civil blockade came into force the land, sea and air blockade of Gaza. So that was my first sort of like moment of consciousness about Palestine and about Gaza in particular. When I was working at SoundCloud many years ago, there was an initiative in Berlin called Berlin Geekettes and they had a chapter in Gaza called Gaza Geekettes. And it was part of this tech hub in Gaza called Gaza Sky Geeks. And what this tech hub did was incubated Palestinian startups in Gaza, worked on training people in tech skills in Gaza and was all about this tertiary like aid program in order to like provide financial freedom for people living in Gaza. And that's an initiative that has since also opened in the West Bank as well. But their the main hub for the office was in Gaza City. And what this program did was bring mentors from outside Gaza into Gaza so that you could meet with the community members, run workshops, do one on one coaching, help out with the boot camps. And yeah, as soon as I found out about it, I was like, this is something I absolutely want to do at some point in my career. I was trying to be quite cognizant of like not going when I was still pretty junior and just wanted to go to GASA. Like I wanted to wait until I was at a more senior point in my career. And then, yeah, like after the COVID, restrictions ended and they were opening up for mentors, I felt like I was in a good place professionally that I felt like I could go and give some value to the community there. So I traveled to Gaza in June 23. My initial trip to Gaza was actually postponed because of bombing in Gaza in May 23. So there was already like this escalation that happened, earlier last year. My trip was postponed to June. But yeah, I spent some time there, as I said, like I was visited the bootcamp. They were in the final stages of their projects. I gave some workshops to like founders and just community members in general about building product, like a lot about product discovery, but also talking about some of the differences between building and crypto and not in crypto and also giving workshops on like hiring PMs and doing some career coaching as well. So, yeah, it was really like amazing opportunity. Learned a lot about, yeah, like tech in the MENA region. Just really like inspiring to meet people in Gaza who are working on similar problems, but like in very different circumstances. And also,
yeah, like some of the challenges that they come up against building tech in Gaza. Yeah. Yeah. I think what, for me, what is interesting to know is about your experience and I think, which is something that for a lot of people who have a kind of stronger understanding of the situation, it's because the what has happened the current situation is not, like, necessarily it's new, but it's not necessarily it's a continuation of what happened well before the October seventh attacks. This is a a situation of being bombed before any of this even happened. So there's this false thing that I see being put out by certain people on Twitter that there was a piece there was peace before October 7, which was absolutely not the case even for you who was someone who wanted to go into Gaza before October 7 ever happened. They were being bombed anyways by Israel. And so if we move on, maybe for the current situation, as far as I understand, I don't know all of the details, of course, but I know there is still ongoing bombing, and there is still a lot of restrictions on the amount of food and aid that can go into Gaza. I was wondering if you could maybe highlight that a bit.
Yep. Just scrolling my social media feed this morning. I think yesterday was one of the worst days since the very beginning for bombing, heavily bombing in Gaza City where people are yet in this forced starvation famine, no aid is getting into the North really or a very limited supplies. The people that are coordinating the aids getting into the North are being targeted by the occupation forces and killed. Yeah. It's really yeah. Yesterday, I think, was just horrendous facing the siege of Al Shefa hospital again as well, and some of the images coming out of that. So and then at the same time, you house the majority of people in Gaza are displaced in Rafa, and there's still discussions ongoing about a grand invasion of Rafa, which every major NGO organization in the world is saying will be an absolutely catastrophic civilian death. So, yeah, it's yeah. I think yesterday was one of the toughest days I've had in a while reading the news. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. From the beginning, there was this constant kind of, like, I don't know, just obfuscation
of the facts about how Israel was targeting hospitals or not. And now at this point, there's well, now there's only I believe there's, like, basically only one hospital left, at least what's left of it. And all of this has just continued to happen lie after lie as the situation gets worse and worse. And so I think we're at a point. We've seen the international community not really do enough for what's going on in Gaza. And so we are in a situation where it is like the the things that we have to do essentially involve, of course, getting out there and applying pressure to your to whatever however you can apply pressure by going to protests, to whatever governments that you are able to apply pressure to. But then as well, trying your best to get as many people as you can out out of Gaza. That's what we're able to do at the moment. But, yeah, I think the of course, the situation is very complicated always, but I think it would be interesting to know for people, like, how like, what is the situation? I think a lot of people don't really maybe not know that people can get out or that they cannot get out, but that there is a way to get out is just, quite costly.
Yeah, of course. Yeah. So if you're interested in reading more about this, there's an article that was written by an Egyptian journalism platform called Madam Esarfs. And I would highly recommend reading it because it goes into the details, not just of the situation since October, but the status quo that so, yeah, I guess people would be, like, really curious about the the process for actually evacuating people through the Rafa Crossing. I would highly advise you to read this article that I'll share the link to that has an in-depth reporting on what the situation was for the Rafa Crossing both prior to October and since and how that's developed over the last couple of months. And, yeah, I would just recommend for you to read that because I think it answers a lot of people's questions and is a really good resource for for what's going on at the moment at the Rafa border. And then like the last thing I guess I wanted to say was, you know, like I cashed out some of my crypto gains, like earlier this year to contribute to a friends go fund me. I think it's really one of the things that's been really upsetting about all of this is realizing that there is actually a price on a human life and feeling that weight on your soul of I have the capacity to actually do something here, and I actually have the capacity to save someone's life. And that's not like that's not an everyday situation. And it's something that those of us who've been able to benefit from the gains in the crypto market, we're, like, uniquely positioned to do this without it really having any impact on our situations.
So, yeah, I guess the kind of one of the things that I really I just wanted to mention maybe just for myself that, like, one of the things that I really struggled with whenever this kind of started popping up as a, as an opportunity or as like a potential for people, like I knew it was possible, but the difficulty is like the lack of, I guess, trust it's in a lot of these disaster situations. Of course you want to, like, I think a lot of people feel like, do I give, like, is the best thing I can do give money to, like, this specific GoFundMe or whatever else. I mean, my kind of strategy has been to just give mostly to people that either that I have some sort of social connection to through some, you know, kind of web of trust type of thing, if you want to say that, where I know I have friends who are in Gaza, and so I help them. So I think having so, like, not having this kind of, like, there's not really any clear trusted entity, it seems to me, in order to, like that you can give and then, like, they will handle everything through, like, some robust institutional system to to make this all happen in in this type of situation of of genocide, of, like, mass oppression. I think this lack of structure is basically on purpose. The complexity and the difficulty is is a feature, not a bug, you're saying. Yeah, of
course. Yeah. And I think that the thing that we've seen happen over the course, of the last like couple of months is like the NGOs and the like more institutional organizations that were providing aids to Gaza prior to October and who worked set up and had this infrastructure inside Gaza already, like haven't been able to access Gaza. Like Israel is not allowing the aid to get in. And it was actually really interesting because I remember when I was in Gaza and I was speaking to someone from an NGO and they were like, oh, yeah. I mean, like the situation in Gaza is actually very, like, stable. Like the infrastructure has been here for the last, like, seventeen years. You know, it's a very, like, predictable place to operate as an NGO in comparison to, like, disaster situations. And now there is a disaster situation and all of that structure has, disappeared and, like, the roots of, like, getting aid and through these structures no longer exists. So what do you do in that situation? It's like this the thing that has come to the forefront and the only way to really, like, make sure that people can get money, can get aids, can survive is through mutual aid. And whether that's through a GoFundMe or yeah. Like, I can talk a little bit more about some projects that friends are running as well to actually get, like, money into Gaza to feed people in the North and like build tents that that can actually withstand like the winter elements. But yeah, it's this kind of if we don't have governments and we don't have infrastructure and we don't have institutions, like all we really have is each other and like, how can we use that to, like, the best of our abilities to try and save lives? Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. It's been one of the things I have my friends who are Palestinian, one of the things that that I noticed about them is that they are very they're always looking out for how to help you, which I think comes out of being in these types of situations where you rely on your social networks to to protect yourselves and protect your social network. So mutual aid is like this informal social net to make sure that we can make sure that as many people as possible are taken care of. But, of course, this becomes more and more difficult as the the pressure increases, as the aid decreases, and as the infrastructure kinda crumbles. And so they are reliant as well now on, of course, it was by design. I had, a couple of years ago, I had some Palestinians on to discuss, like, the issue with Gaza and Palestine in general being horrifically dependent. Something like 80% of, like, the money in Palestine is from international aid. And so they of course, there is this flipping where they say well, Israelis or whoever who are against the Palestinian struggle will say that, like, they're asking for handouts or whatever else, but also the entire situation and system is designed that way for them to not be able to have this kind of economic sovereignty or anything else. They don't have their own currency you were mentioning earlier. A lot of these things are have been designed for a long time well before October 7. And I think the way that I see, for me, that entire event was that it was it was a reaction to what was already happening. And when that gets ignored, then you're completely taking out, like, the humanity of these people who like, I don't think anybody wants to take part in, such an event, but it's something that if you're in such situation, there has to be some sort of cause to it, and you can't ignore those causes. But, yeah, I guess, if there's you you mentioned that there were some projects that maybe you wanted to share about with some friends.
Yeah. So I have two friends who were working who lived and worked in Gaza for, like, five years with Gaza Sky Geeks, and they have two initiatives running at the moment. One is a mutual aid fund to get money into Gaza. So to be able to provide it to the people who need it most to get food and, yeah, like to build tents that can withstand the the elements at the moment, and they've been able to get quite a lot of money into Gaza and be able to, distribute that to people who are most in need. So I I can share the link for that. And then they also actually started another initiative, for GoFundMe champions. So they're recruiting people who can essentially take a GASM family's GoFundMe and, like, sponsor it to their network. So it's connecting people that they know in Gaza with people that they know outside Gaza. And, yeah, like, this kind of one to one relationship between someone who's outside Gaza and can do that sponsorship is hopefully gonna be able to raise some more money for them. So I can share the links for both of them. Yeah. For sure. I'll have those in the in the show notes.
And then maybe because so basically, ETH evacuations, if you go to the website, it has, of course, a little bit about yourself, about the project, and as well an address that people can send to. So send you're you're mainly looking for ether for people to give or anything else.
Yeah. So, yeah, ETH on main net base or optimism is amazing
and we'll take donations and whether it's ETH or tokens on the network as well. So I'm just curious to know based on this experience, this is something for me is interesting to know as well for whatever disasters comes our way later in life. But what is it that you think specifically that crypto is doing in in in this particular situation, sending it to doing it for this cause?
Yeah. For sure. So I think the maybe the easy answer here is that crypto is a community of people who have money and who are like, this is our arena, like being able to pull funds together for projects and for initiatives and being able to do that very quickly. And that's something that's been really amazing about crypto. One thing I will say is that I'm trying to be as practical as possible here because it isn't this beautiful, idealistic, like end to end on chain experience, like having to stay like flexible to the changing circumstances and the unpredictability of, like actually being able to get that money and into Gaza after it's been raised. But I think the real power here has been like people in our industry gathering around a cause and, being very generous with their donations.
Yeah. With with the recent increase in price, I encourage everyone to at least put a portion of that money that you're making for for those who are suffering the worst at the moment in Gaza. I think it's yeah. I think there is this a bit of idealism perhaps in the crypto world that every kind of problem or situation, we can completely handle it on chain, and it'll be completely autonomous and decentralized. But that's really not especially during disaster situations, that's, like, not really either not possible or not necessarily desirable in situations like this is compression.
Yeah, definitely. I think like I'd been thinking a lot from the beginning of, of the situation, like how I could do something crypto related to help Gaza in one way or another. And like, I went through like a bunch of different ideas and thinking about like how I could like have this wonderful solution and over engineered probably, and like trying to automate everything. And at the end of the day, I think it's like, crypto's awesome for, like, raising this, like, huge pool of capital that can then be, like, deployed to people in need. I'm like this trusted, like, intermediary person where I have connections to both, like, crypto world and people on the ground in Gaza. And these are all people I know personally, and I can, like, make that connection. And then then I just need to be as practical as possible about, like, how to actually move that money to to people in need. And I think that's like the it's like the approach that maybe I've just, like, taken with building products forever. It's like, what can I do without an engineer? Like, how can I, like, make this, like, happen myself or make it seem like it's happening seamlessly? And yeah, I think there just needs to be a bit of a human element there right now and be to try and be as practical as possible about it. I think it is in these situations where
trust in humans is more powerful than, like, trust in, a product or an app because it is a very Interesting. Very serious human situation going on. And so you mentioned you said people can send their ETH they go to ethevacuations.xyz is the website? Exactly. If they go there, they'll find everything that they need to send it. And then I think is there an ENS as well?
There's not an ENS. So
Yeah. So go to eatevacuations.echoxyz. I'll put the full address definitely in the show notes. I've already given a bit. So I put my money where my mouth is. And, yeah, you mentioned main net optimism or base as the the main networks that you would like to receive it in.
Yeah. Amazing. Thank you. And, yeah, I guess, thanks to everybody who's donated so far. We've actually been able to finish the GoFundMe's for two full families so that they can start the evacuation process. There's a third family that we've been able to donate to to get a last family member process started. And, yeah, next up, I'm trying to raise for a young woman called Naveen who I met in Gaza. She's a 23 year old data analyst, and I would love to be able to raise the money to get her family out of Gaza. Yeah. Great. Is there maybe any last words you want to leave with people? Anything that anything else that people can or should do? Yeah. I think the well, I don't want people to come away from this conversation is thinking that, like, I'm doing something amazing by doing this or doing something out of the ordinary. I think everybody has it within their capacity to do something, to move the needle forward, to help with this situation. And if there's anything that I would like people to take away from it is like, how can you leverage, like, your specific situation in order to help people in Gaza? Because yeah, at the end of the day, all we really have is each other. Nice.
Well, thank you so much for coming on. I really appreciate all the work that you're doing. I really appreciate, yeah, being able to recognize your particular spots and situation to try to maximize the amount of help that you can get into Gaza. And, yeah, I recommend people check out eth evacuations. X y z. It's the best thing that I've seen so far. A lot of people have asked me, what can we do with crypto to help people in Gaza? Kind of my gut reaction is to say, go out and protest. But the other thing you can do is, of course, donate to ethevacuations.xyz and give some of that that crypto that you've been making in the recent month in the recent month, past few weeks to help people who who really need it. So, yeah. Thanks so much.