Basic needs for refugees, medical care on the ground, and visa assistance — some crypto users are sending tokens to nonprofits and others to help the Afghan people.
With thousands of Afghans currently being accepted as refugees in different countries following the Taliban’s takeover of many highly populated areas, many nonprofit organizations are accepting donations in cryptocurrency.
Thousands if not millions of Afghans are attempting to or are in the process of fleeing their home in fear of what the Taliban may do now they are largely in control of the country. Organizations helping refugees and those on the ground have put the word out: they need funds to support Afghans arriving on foreign soil with often little more than the clothes on their backs.
Hearts & Homes for Refugees, a New-York based grassroots nonprofit, is currently calling for donations to assist the roughly 20,000 Afghans still in the country waiting for U.S. authorities to process special immigrant visas. The group hopes to raise enough funds to relocate Afghan families to Westchester County, and currently accepts Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Litecoin (LTC), ZCash (ZEC), Gemini dollar (GUSD), BAL, Yearn.Finance (YFI), Polygon (MATIC), Synthetix (SNX) and Bancor (BNT) through its integration with the Giving Block.
Now more than ever we need help supporting new arrivals from Afghanistan w/ #crypto donations. Help nonprofits like Hearts & Homes where it matters & when it matters most!
Please show your support for this campaign by donating at our @TheGivingBlock page: https://t.co/IdRGN9LiyV https://t.co/2Tn4SM1Kg6
— Hearts and Homes for Refugees (@HHRefugees) August 16, 2021
CARE, an organization with offices across the world that advocates for women and girls, has said 393,000 Afghans have been displaced during the Taliban takeover and are in need of emergency aid. Jack Butcher, the founder of consulting firm Visualize Value, has launched a series of nonfungible token, or NFT, “care packages,” each of which is aimed to be sold to match the organization’s estimated cost covering a single family’s emergency needs for a month.
Each edition of this NFT covers one Afghan family’s emergency needs for a month.
If you can’t help financially, please consider a RT.
↓ https://t.co/psxeBGBIhC pic.twitter.com/ocEI1RMwYW
— @jackbutcher (@jackbutcher) August 16, 2021
Butcher said the 0.028 ETH proceeds of each NFT sale — totaling $124,576 as of Aug. 19 — have gone directly to CARE to help Afghans. At the time of publication, 195 of the individual NFTs are still available for purchase. Crypto users also have the option of purchasing 10 at a time for 0.28 ETH, or roughly $914, to help 10 families through late September.
Related: $1.3M worth of BTC donated to Bitcoin-hodling charity in less than 3 weeks
Some organizations with operations on the ground in Afghanistan are also still in contact using social media and asking for help. Code to Inspire, a school aiming to educate Afghan girls on coding and robotics, is accepting crypto contributions via the Giving Block. Founder Fareshteh Forough reported today that students were “still coding at home.”
The situation in Afghanistan is still developing, but there have already been reports of assault, murder, and human rights violations as the Taliban expand their foothold. However, it’s important for well intentioned crypto users to be mindful about who they donate to; some fear that scammers may use the media attention to their advantage by stealing donations intended for Afghans.
