Charlotte Church and Dafydd Iwan join music project to support Palestinians

Stephen Price

Some of the biggest names in Welsh music including Charlotte Church, Dafydd Iwan and Mari Mathias have joined together for a musical project to support Palestinian fundraisers.

‘When I Survive’ is a musical compilation and project that was created following the 400 days of genocide in Gaza.

The project features contributions from some of Wales’ leading musical and activist voices including Charlotte Church, Dafydd Iwan and Mari Mathias.

Celebrated performers Cerys Hafana, Lemfreck and Talulah are also featured alongside over 30 other celebrated performers.

Crisis

As winter arrives for a second time and as famine sets in, an unprecedented humanitarian crisis is unfolding on the world stage – with over 45,000 killed.

2 million people are currently being subjected to unimaginable hardship at this very moment, with many Palestinians having had to resort to their own fundraising in the hopes of rebuilding their lives or escaping the warzone.

The people behind #WhenISurvive hope that it can inspire support with at least some individual cases ‘to share their stories, to voice our solidarity directly, and to donate where we can’.

They say “We cannot simply watch as onlookers”.

Funding

The team behind the compilation album and project shared: “There are rumours that the Rafah Crossing, which has been closed since the spring, may reopen in the coming days.

“Now is the time to make your voices heard, demand the crossing is reopened and donate to individual and family fundraisers for Palestinians, ensure they have the means to escape this genocide and survive.”

“The funds raised from this music compilation will go to two friends from Gaza City, Yahya Al Hamarna (@yahya_alhamarna) who is now displaced in Khan Younis, and Yousef Abdellatif (@yousef_altamimi1) who is now displaced in Nuseirat.

“Thank you to all the musicians who have contributed to this compilation and thank you to SPAF Collective for creating the beautiful artwork. Your solidarity speaks volumes.”

Two voices among many

One of the organisers of the project is Hannah Saunders from Pembrokeshire.

Hannah told us: “Earlier this year, on March 30th, a day known as ‘Land Day’ in Palestine, I received a message from Yahya Al Hamarna, sharing his fundraising campaign. I learnt that he was a political science student, but that his university, Al Azhar University, had been bombed in November 2023 and destroyed by the Israeli Army.

“I also learnt early on that he dreamt of visiting Cardiff (His favourite football team Real Madrid played in Cardiff during the UEFA Champions League).

“He even included it as one of the cities he wanted to visit in his beautiful poem ‘When I Survive’, from which this project takes its name.”

 

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A post shared by Yahya Alhamarna (@yahya_alhamarna)

“Yahya has been using his pen to record memoirs and reflections on his experiences during this genocide. He has lost many family members, including 18 loved ones on his mother’s side in a single day. His grandfather is older than the occupation, his family is warm and kind.

Prayer and action

Hannah continued: “I am a medieval art historian, and every church i’ve visited since we started talking, I said a prayer for Yahya, lit a candle for Yahya. I put his words up in my window in Pembrokeshire, a QR code to his fundraiser link, biographical information, a photograph, in hopes some passerby might donate.

“He has been displaced many times, moving from place to place, from shelter to ‘tent’. I say ‘tent’ because you can not call the structures tents in the traditional sense.

“This brings me on to Bron, there is an incredible woman in Aotearoa/New Zealand named Bron, I’d seen that she often shared a lot of fundraisers on Instagram, and that she’d raised a phenomenal $20,000 dollars so far this year for many families in Gaza.

“I started talking with her to voice my admiration, and learnt that she’d helped Yahya and his family to purchase a number of tarpaulin’s back in September, the ‘tent’ i refererd to.

“She’d started talking to Yahya when Ashraf and Aboud, two brothers who she was helping to support were offline for a couple of weeks in December 2023, she started leaving comments to see if they were okay, and that’s when Yahya messaged to let her know they were fine but had no way to connect to the internet.”

“That’s the thing about this horrific situation, this genocide – there are so many good and caring people who want to do whatever they can to help each other. This is not a one way thing, it’s mutual, this is not about charity, it’s about looking out for each other, it’s about humanity.”

The project

On 5 November, Hannah saw that Bron had posted a story on instagram wishing Yahya’s friend Yousef a Happy Birthday, his 25th Birthday, his second birthday during this genocide.

Hannah decided to follow him and send a message to wish him a happy birthday too.

The following day when they messaged again, he sent her voice clips of Occupation gunfire close by.

Hannah shared: “For hours, I waited for news of his safety and that of his family. I felt useless, and started posting on my stories explaining to my friends and followers the situation, many of them began to send him words of support. The next morning he came back online, and I was relieved to learn he was safe and alive.

“Before the genocide, Yousef was a student at the Islamic University in Gaza, he developed fundraising apps there, it’s been bombed by the Israeli Occupation and destroyed like Yahya’s. I learnt Yousef loves to swim, and he loves greenery and I started sending him photographs of Pembrokeshire and Carmarthenshire.

“I learnt he loves football and supports Liverpool (He was very pleased when Liverpool beat Yahya’s team Real Madrid last week!), he also knew of Cardiff and Wales because of Football. We became friends instantly.”

Yousef’s campaign had stalled at just $200, though he’d had it up for around 8 months, but through sharing links, Hanna managed to get it up to $1000 in a week.

Hannah told us: “His family had felt like nobody was going to help them, and this broke my heart, they are a beautiful family and they deserve support.

“I’d been sharing fundraiser links on my stories for some time before this and making the odd post, i started making a few videos too. But there are 2 million people in Gaza, many of them trying to crowdfund their way to safety, or to rebuild their old lives when this nightmare finally ends.

“On Tuesday 12 November, Yousef asked me if I could help him write a message to send to some friends to try and get help to raise more funds, my friend Ellis Green was one of them. He suggested that we make a musical compilation, our friend Ruby Bradshaw who had offered portraits in exchange for donations to Yousef’s fundraiser also got involved, and the three of us started to get busy.

“The scope of the project became a lot bigger than we intended, and we decided to team up to raise funds for both Yousef and Yahya who had been friends in Gaza City before being displaced to different areas of the Strip.”

Voices for peace

Hannah reached out to many musicians, sometimes through friends and mutual followers online, and they were taken aback by how many people were eager to help and use their music to raise funds for these inspiring young men.

Hannah told Nation.Cymru: “I’d shown both of them Dafydd Iwan’s ‘Yma O Hyd’ and they’d loved it, seen the similarities between the words and their situation, ‘We’re Still Here’. I reached out to him through my friend Tad who is a musician and his mother Wendy who founded, Côr Cochion Caerdydd, the Red Choir with her late Husband ‘Red Ray’ Davies. Dafydd replied immediately to voice that the song belongs to everyone, and he is a supporter of the Palestinian People and their cause.

“Charlotte Church was also eager to help and sent over a beautiful song titled ‘Yama’ meaning Mother in arabic, she’d sung this same song a year before at a protest outside Cardiff central station and we’d all joined in.

“Many other Welsh artists came onboard, along with artists from Ireland, Scotland, England and America.”

“We set ourselves the deadline of Sunday 1st December, the first day of Christmas.

Whilst the homeland of Jesus is facing ethnic cleansing, we feel that people should be supporting fundraisers, over buying presents. There is no business as usual during a genocide.

“Seeing the overwhelming amount of support for Yousef and Yahya has been a ray of light in dark times. They have been so pleased to see that people care, that they want to help, that they are not ignorant to the plight of the Palestinian people.

“Both of them would love to visit Wales, and we hope to welcome them here soon.

“The cost of permits and fees to leave the Gaza Strip if the Rafah Crossing reopens, (it’s been closed since Spring 2024) is around $5,000 per person to cross into Egypt. Passport fees are around $100 per person, and then there is also the cost of actually getting to the Crossing from different locations in Gaza. Yahya is raising funds to get out and go to Belgium to continue his studies, Yousef is fundraising for his entire family to leave.”

“We’ve got £45,000 to raise to get the both of them up to their targets, and we encourage people to buy the compilation, but more importantly, donate to their fundraisers, and other fundraisers by Palestinians. Even if it’s £5 here and £5 there, it all adds up, it can save lives.

“Then there is the cost of living in general. The price of the little food available in Gaza right now makes the cost of living crisis we face in wales look insignificant. Many palestinian’s have paypal accounts they use to get the necessities to survive each day, and they often rely on funds from us to do so.

“As winter has come the solar power is lacking, and it’s hard for them to charge their phones, there is little internet signal, and it costs to buy a little ticket to get an allocated amount of time to get online with weak signal, often they walk miles to get access. Can you imagine doing all of this, messaging people asking for help, and getting none? We need to do better. We need to encourage others to engage with these campaigns, speak to these wonderful people who face so much hardship, and to donate where they can to try and ease their burden.”

Purchase the compilation album to support the fundraisers via BandCamp.

View Yahya’s Fundraiser here.

View Yousef’s Fundraiser here.

Musicians involved

Charlotte Church (@therealcharlottechurch)
Kareem Samara (@kareemsamaramusic)
Dafydd Iwan (@dafyddi)
Meryl Streek (@merylstreek_)
Mari Mathias (@marimathiasmusic_)
Lemfreck (@lemfreck)
Cerys Hafana (@ceryshafana)
Wyldest (@wyldest)
Karl D’Silva (@krldslv)
Care Charmer (@carecharmer)
Moon Goose (@moongoosecult)
Ithildin (@guillaumetrep)
Sunken Grove (@sunken.grove)
Ellis Green (@ellisgreensg)
Otha Derek Hernández Peña (_odhp_)
FARE (@faremusic_)
The Breaks (@thebreaksband)
The Barrowfolk (@thewillowtea)
Hawthonn (@hawthonn)
Matthew Shaw (@matthew___shaw)
Teresa Winter (@teresawinterr)
Michael m Kasparis (@apostolos_kasparis)
TELGATE (@telgateuk)
Hawk Howard (@hawkhowardmusic)
Tristwch Y Fenywod (@tristwch_y_fenywod)
Elspeth Anne (@elspeth.a)
Tom Emlyn (@tomemlyn)
Lacquer (@lacquer___)
Tad (@tad_miwsic)
S Antigone (@simone___antigone)
Talulah (@talulah.t)
Prom Committee (@prom.committee.co.uk)
LASH (@lash__band)
Côr Cochion Caerdydd
Daedric Disciple
James Smith