Pickled Porcupines

A thread of Fundraiser of Congo and Sudan

Gfm to support Congolese non profits like focus Congo and Friends of the Congo

Help @/Godlessdyke's family escape Genocide

Another Gfm that supports friends of the Congo to help Congolese people and Children!

Help Leon, a Congolese refugee and his family

Help 4 Sudanese families

Support Rasheed's family journey to safety

Help Hiba's family

Support Isra's education in Egypt

A small comic about Palestine I created to appeal to more passive family and friends

Anyways if you have the money I urge you to donate to Ibraheem Hadi, a Palestinian who contacted me and whom I promised to highlight in relation to this comic:

Below are some verified donation links of organisations that are currently providing assistance for the people in Gaza directly:

Food, water, and shelter

Taawon has launched a campaign to provide support in Gaza through food parcels, shopping vouchers, fresh produce, water bottles and shelter tents.

Watermelon Relief is a project initiated and implemented by a group of activists in Gaza, who work to provide aid to displaced families in Gaza through meals, support and activities.

World Food Programme (WFP) managed to provide assistance to more than 1 million people in Gaza in May by delivering food in shelters, makeshift camps and shops.

Life for Gaza is an initiative through which the Municipality of Gaza aims to provide basic necessities for the people of Gaza such as water projects, waste collection and the reconstruction of roads.

Arab Group for the Protection of Nature (APN) is working to plant farmlands in Gaza through their "Revive Gaza Farmlands" project, through which they had already started planting vegetables, fruits and leafy greens in Gaza.

Purchasing eSIMs is one of the only remaining ways to keep Gazans connected with the outside world, to get their stories out or even enable them to call for help after Israeli strikes.

The Sameer Project is a donation based aid initiative that provides tents, cash aid, diapers and formula for displaced families in Gaza.

Care For Gaza is an organisation that works to provide essential aid such as food packages and cash to deliver to displaced families in Gaza.

Palestine Children's Relief Fund, through their "Gaza Relief and Recovery" campaign, plan to provide essential medical supplies and treatments, as well as food and clean water.

The UNRWA has an Emergency Appeal for Gaza, where donations will provide families in Gaza with lifesaving food and water, winter kits and to repair UNRWA shelters.

Mutual Aid for the People of Gaza is a fundraiser managed by Mona in Gaza, who personally purchases and distributes basic supplies including food parcels to families in Gaza.

Help Gaza Children is another grassroots effort operating on the ground in Gaza to support families with food, water and clothing.

Medical care

Palestinian Red Crescent has been on the ground in Palestine since 1968 as part of the Red Cross & Crescent movement. They have had a continuous presence on the ground in Gaza as the main source of medical care and assistance.

Medical Aid for Palestine (MAP) provides medical supplies and supports healthcare services in Gaza.

Doctors Without Borders (MSF) provide medical and humanitarian aid in Palestine and have had their teams on the ground operating from MSF-supported health facilities across Gaza.

Gaza Wound Care is a medical team in a tent in Nuseirat, providing care to children and supporting pregnant women.

A real and immediate impact you can have that will directly help a Palestinian is to buy an eSIM and send it to [email protected]. This allows Gazans to access mobile data so they can get news out and keep in touch with their friends and family.

If you have never done this before, here is a step by step guide, complete with discount codes. It is slightly technical but still fairly easy (imo, ymmv). If you can't/don't want to buy one directly, you can donate to Crips for eSIMs and they will buy one on your behalf.

individual environmentalism gets a lot of flak in the face of corporate pollution but picking up litter makes a significant, noticeable impact. I spend about an hour a week picking up litter from around my dorm complex and I'm literally outpacing my community's litter production. Just an hour a week from one person is enough to offset nearly 200 people's worth of littering.

it would take less than 100 man-hours of labor per week to keep my whole college campus entirely litter-free. If you got two classrooms' worth of people to spend two hours per week each picking up litter, the whole campus would end up spotless and they'd straight up fucking run out of things to pick up.

I've been litter picking in the background of my walks and I've removed several bags of trash from the area. The other day, children were playing in the creek that I litter pick at a lot. They were jumping into the water and swimming, right in the spot where I pulled torn up cans out of the riverbed and where I removed nearly-buried fishing wire that still had hooks on the ends. Just one person with a sharps container made it safer for those kids to go out and have fun.

That was the most direct cause and effect thing I've had with litter picking after just a little while of doing it, but even aside from that it's just. Good to do. It makes your area cleaner and safer and removes plastic from the environment. Plus, people are less likely to litter in clean areas, and litter can not be subconsciously normalized in people's minds in a litter-free area.

But what this post doesn't even mention is the community aspect. Which is possibly my favorite part.

Every single time I go to pick up garbage without fail I have at least one positive interaction with a stranger in my neighborhood. Sometimes small like someone walking past and saying thank you for doing it. But also people sometimes offering to help or even offering a bottle of water. And since I've started doing it I've seen more people in my neighborhood going out with gloves and a bag on a warm evening after school or work. In which case when I see them on my walks I become the kind stranger they meet that day.

Have you been having tough, complicated, frustrating conversations about the inclusion of women in sports recently? Have friends or family who are repeating talking points about certain Olympic boxers having an "unfair advantage" over other women?

If you want to be able to have smarter, more nuanced and fact based conversations about this stuff, I really do think my most recent project will help.

I spent the last ten years researching sex testing, and all that work culminated into a podcast called TESTED. It's six episodes, and it takes you around the world and back in time to understand where sex testing comes from, how it has shifted over time, and why it won't go away.

I worked really hard on the project, and I really do think that listening will help people be smarter about sex, gender, sports and fairness.

It's time for the 2024 Comics Worker Survey for Workers in the US!!!!!!!

Pay transparency is crucial to uncovering patterns in pay inequity & learning what publishers and clients can ACTUALLY pay us. Submit your info and encourage your peers to do the same!!!

Submit info HERE

Non-US Comics Worker Surveys are in the works! For now this is for comics workers who live and work in the US. Questions or concerns? Email us at [email protected] and we'll try to respond as quickly as we can.

Want to see 2023's Comics Worker Survey report? Read it here!

Trigger warning for graphic descriptions of injured and dead wildlife.

When a fireworks display occurs near a wild bird roost, the birds simultaneously explode into the night skies in utter panic, which can lead to huge numbers of deaths, usually because these birds either smash their skulls or break their necks as the result of flying into trees, fences, billboards, houses and other solid objects that they cannot see in the gloom and ensuing chaos.

Many of the startled birds who take flight fly at much higher altitudes and for much longer durations than they’re used to to escape the noise, which is energetically costly and physiologically stressful.

Small birds and bats can be knocked from the air and killed by the sonic shock. In 2010, 40 dead sparrows were discovered dead under a roost in a nature reserve after a local fireworks display. The manager of the reserve witnessed a tawny owl fluttering and convulsing on the ground after a particularly loud explosion. It died shortly after.

In Arkansas in 2010, some 5,000 red-winged blackbirds, European starlings, common grackles and brown-headed cowbirds suffered blunt-force trauma after colliding with cars, trees and buildings, an ornithologist from the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission would tell National Geographic.

In 2008, federal officials showed that seabirds in the northern California town of Gualala abandoned their nests after a fireworks show, leaving their eggs vulnerable to predators.

Each year in Austin, Texas, the Congress Bridge bats can be seen fleeing the fireworks display en masse on weather radar, and emergences from their roost diminish noticeably in the days following the Fourth.

In 2018, the Galapagos banned the sale and use of pyrotechnics. According to the BBC, conservationists said that fireworks caused elevated heart rates, trembling and anxiety in many animals. 

The threat to wildlife doesn’t stop at startling lights and sounds; fireworks also have the potential of starting wildfires, directly affecting wildlife and destroying essential habitat. Litter from firecrackers, bottle rockets and other explosives can be choking hazards for wildlife and may be toxic if ingested.

So what do you do if you want to watch fireworks responsibly? Experts say municipalities are more likely to be aware of these dangers than private consumers. Their best advice is to stick to the shows put on by professionals and local governments, which tend to follow guidelines put forth by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, among others, about animal safety.

The National Audubon Society offers similar guidelines: “Commercial fireworks are concentrated in one location, rather than in several locations at once, which is what often happens in neighborhoods. This allows birds to take off and land again in a ‘safer’ location rather than continuing to flee noises coming at them from all directions.”

From @wearedissenters on Instagram:

🔗Link in bio to donate to a mutual aid fund for Queer and trans Palestinians, Sudanese, Congolese peoples and front line organizers.🔗

🌈🇵🇸Queer as in free Palestine. Trans as in free Palestine.

We’re not here for the pinkwashing and rainbow capitalism of u.s. imperialism and the zionist entity. We’re here for collective liberation! ❤️‍🔥🌱

You can also donate physical objects in high demand right now, if you have the $ to pay for international shipping prices, and send to this address [10 Avenue Des Messagers, Quartier Les Volcans, Commune de Goma, Ville de Goma, Province du Nord-Kivu, République Démocratique du Congo]. They need just about everything you use in a day to get by.

Clothing, socks, jackets, coats, (All sizes from infants to adults), purses, tote bags, backpacks.

Blankets, pillows & cases, bed sheets

Shoes, (All sizes!)

Cutlery, pots & pans, plates, cups, mugs (preferably plastic for the cups & plates so they don't break during shipment)

Over the counter medication & med supplies: ibuprofen (Advil), hydrogen peroxide, pain killers, bandages, bandaids, hand sanitizer, acetaminophen (Tylenol), cotton balls, gauze, deworming medication, compression wraps, saline solution, topical pain relief (Icy Hot), hydro-cortisone, detail, anti-funga treatment, surgical tape.

Baby formula, vitamins, water purification tablets, lifestraws, hair care / skin care products, pads & tampons, soap, toothbrushes, toothpaste, wet wipes, baby wipes, diapers.

However! If you are in the U.S., you can send (shoes only) your packages to this address in the U.S. [Exile International, Entrance F. 3534 West End Ave. Nashville, TN 37205, United States] which will ship them to the previously listed address, so it's less cost for you!

And finally, you can also go volunteer with Focus Congo! Fill out the application here, and email them at [email protected], make sure to attach your resumé / CV, so they assign you to work that best suits your capabilities. Foreverjuicebae / juicebaeinthewild is one such volunteer and she posts regularly about the conditions of Congolese people in the DRC.

Full transcript and links below the cut. All @ links in the graphics are for instagram

Help a Palestinian family directly:

gazafunds.com - Donate directly to a Palestinian family in urgent need of evacuation, medical attention, food, rebuilding homes/businesses etc. (Spotlights 1 verified gfm at a time so if you don't know who/where to donate to just go here and donate to the one they show you!)

Help provide tents (urgent):

The Sameer Project: Currently providing tents for displaced families in Gaza (emergency bc tents in Rafah are being burned as we speak) (paypal) (gfm)

Food, cash & essentials:

Care for Gaza: Working on the ground in Gaza to distribute food, cash, medicine & other essentials to displaced families. (paypal) (gfm)

Direct Aid for Gaza: also working on the ground in Gaza to distribute food, cash & other daily essential suppliess to displaced families. (paypal) (gfm)

Water:

Gaza Municipality's water project: The official Municipality of Gaza needs help rebuilding the water infrastructure in Gaza City to restore access to clean water and waste management services for the people of Gaza. (This campaign only has a couple of weeks left but it's still only at 15%!)

eSIMs (urgent):

guide to buy & send esims for gaza

crips for esims for gaza: If you don't know how to buy esims or don't have the capacity to manage them (e.g. topping up regularly), this team of volunteers are collecting funds to buy & manage gaza esims regularly

Medical Aid

donate to doctors without borders here

donate to careforgaza here, providing food, medicine and clothing

donate an e-sim to gaza today

donate feminine hygiene kits for women in gaza

donate to the palestinian civilian relief fund

donate to the palestine children's relief fund

donate to the world food programme

donate medical aid for palestinians

donate to the united nations relief for palestine refugees

donate to healpalestine

if you are looking for individual fundraisers to donate to but are struggling to choose, gazafunds gives a spotlight to fundraisers that are not close to their goal.

Goma Actif is a Congolese nonprofit that has boots on the ground in Goma, DRC, at the Kanyaruchinya displacement camp, providing food to people who have fled the latest offensive by the M23 rebel group.

The Congolese people have expressed frustration that international organizations are slow and fickle when it comes to distributing aid. Goma Actif functions entirely within DRCongo and therefore bypasses international red tape to deliver aid more reliably than external sources.

Now more than ever it is incredibly important to support community aid kitchens doing vital work on the ground.