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Rama Duwaji promised to donate the profits from a T-shirt she designed to help a grassroots Gaza charity — but never sent the $2,000 raised, The Post has learned.
A year after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist strikes on Israel, New York City’s now-first lady designed shirts to benefit Dahnoun Mutual Aid, a group based in Gaza that provides essential services to displaced Palestinians, according to its social media posts.
The $47 T-shirts — which featured a drawing of a bird on top of a woman’s head with the Arabic phrase “Khair Ya Tair” (“Good news, oh bird!”) — were sold on Everpress, a London-based platform that worked with charities to sell items for fundraising.
Duwaji pledged 100% of the profits from the shirts, which were advertised on her Instagram account and raised about $2,000, a source told The Post. That money went into “a creator” account at the company, the source said.
The Post is told that Everpress appealed several times to Duwaji to send her banking information so that they could wire her the cash, which she then was required to send to the charity.
“That’s the way it’s supposed to work,” said the source, adding that the platform, which shut down in May, routinely worked with large charities such as War Child and UNICEF. “Everpress took in the funds for the creator [then] sent the money to the creator for the charity.”
The source said that the team at Everpress repeatedly reached out to Duwaji on her personal email account and via Instagram, but she did not respond and the $2,000 stayed in the account.
“At the time we had no idea who she was, but if you say you are going to donate to something, then you need to donate,” the source told The Post. “We thought maybe she donated on her own, but we couldn’t find any proof that she did that.”
A spokeswoman for the Mayor’s office told The Post that Duwaji did not keep the proceeds from any of the T-shirt sales.
“First Lady Rama Duwaji designed a shirt for which 100% of the proceeds would go towards Dahnoun Mutual Aid for Gaza,” said Dora Pekec. “The shirt was sold via the third-party site Everpress HQ, which allows independent creators to sell clothing without upfront costs. At no point were the proceeds in the First Lady’s account. The proceeds remain at Everpress HQ and will be sent to the mutual aid organization.”
But the company issued several notices to “creators” noting that it would be shutting down in May. “With rising costs and an increasing challenging market, we’ve had to make the difficult decision to wind things down,” said an Everpress notice posted by a former creator earlier this month. The source noted that Duwaji’s campaign took place in 2024, and she had two years to claim the cash for the charity.
An online fundraiser for Dahnoun Mutual Aid shows no donations from Duwaji. The charity has raised $1.1 million towards its $2 million goal. The group did not return a request for comment this week.
“Khair Ya Tair is a hopeful ask, a quiet reassurance, an open palm,” wrote Duwaji in a description of the T-shirt design on the Everpress site. “The Tair in question is the Palestinian Sunbird, a symbol for freedom and defiance of restrictions and borders.100% profit from this garment goes towards winter clothes in North Gaza via Dahnoun Mutual Aid.”
Duwaji, 29, is described as a “Syrian illustrator and animator based in Brooklyn, NYC” on the site. “Using drawn portraiture and movement, Rama examines the nuances of communal experiences and sisterhood.”
Duwaji has faced criticism for “liking” posts celebrating Hamas terrorists in the past. She has apologized for past posts, including one from 2015, when she raged that Tel Aviv “shouldn’t exist in the first place” and another in which she dropped the N-word.
English (US)