I retired from the Canadian military at the age of 32 after serving 10 years, and after having the honour of deploying twice to Afghanistan. Shortly after, civilian life created a void in me –a lack of purpose. A year ago, I shared with a small group of friends a dream about re-finding purpose in life by creating a sanctuary in Costa Rica to help veterans and first-responders with long-term management of PTSD through active philanthropy. We met at a friend’s basement and started to throw ideas around. We had no idea of how we were going to achieve this dream, or what type of challenges lay ahead for us. A year later, we have achieved so much. As each Aftermath Association volunteer has made this dream their own, it has transformed into something much more beautiful and complex than I could have ever imagined. With over 25 volunteers, mental health and medical experts providing paid and unpaid professional and non-professional service, and with the cooperation of sister charities in Costa Rica, it is now time for us to take our final step towards deploying Roto 0.
At the core of the Camp Aftermath vision is the concrete belief that we can make a difference by simply acting on our humanitarian instinct of giving and providing service to others. We ask you to act on this belief in support of our cause. We need YOU to spread the word about our cause and help raise the $10,000 required to fund Roto 0 in 2018. Within just a couple weeks, we’ve raised over $1900. You can help us continue this momentum by giving on November 28th during #GivingTuesdayCA.
Help a veteran or first-responder feel like a hero again: https://www.gofundme.com/ptsd-retreat-in-costa-rica
Thank you in advance for all that you have done and you will. We are grateful.
– Farid
