PERSONAL STORY

Title: The Air I Breathe, The Future I Fight For

(Part 1: The Edge of the Abyss)

The first thing I lose is the air. It doesn't just fade; it's stolen. One moment, I am a student, a dreamer, a man. The next, I am a gasping, desperate animal, my lungs a locked cage and my own body the traitor holding the key. My name is Firaol Teshome, and I live every day on the edge of an abyss, where severe chronic asthma is the darkness waiting to pull me under. Asthma first struck me only two years ago — before that, I had never experienced it in my entire life. I have felt my lung capacity, my very life force, shrink to a terrifying 10%, with the cold, sterile hiss of an oxygen tube in Dambi Dollo Hospital the only thing reminding me I am still alive.

The World Health Organization reports that asthma causes between 450,000 and 455,000 deaths every year — more than 1,200 per day. Most of these deaths occur due to two main reasons: the lack of proper long-term treatment, which leads to progressive lung damage, and the absence of urgent medical care during sudden asthma attacks, which can completely stop breathing if help is not reached quickly.That is not a statistic to me. That is a shadow that follows me; a constant whisper that says, "You could be next." The doctors have drawn the line in the sand: this is a permanent, irreversible damage we are fighting. Every day without guaranteed, immediate access to a hospital is another day the abyss gets closer, another shovel of dirt on the coffin I am trying to outrun.

(Part 2: The Scars That Bind Me)

This is not my first war with my own body. In Grade 8, I didn't just have surgery; I was gutted and rebuilt. Surgeons carved out a piece of me the size of a man's ear to save my life, leaving me with a roadmap of pain etched across my stomach. I cannot sleep on my right side. An empty stomach is a knot of agony; a full one is a lead weight. There is no comfort, only the constant, ghostly reminder of how close I came to the end.

But that surgery was just the first battle. The chronic pain it left behind became the fuel for my anxiety, which in turn became the trigger for my asthma. It is a vicious, unbreakable chain: the pain feeds the fear, the fear feeds the asthma, and the lack of transport to escape it feeds the despair. In 2017 E.C. I accepted to Wollega University as regular student. This is the truth behind why I had to surrender my place at Wollega University. My official withdrawal states "due to health problem," which was the university's classification for the overwhelming psychological toll my chronic physical illnesses had created. I was a prisoner in my own mind, so broken by the cycle of pain and breathlessness that I could no longer think, could no longer dream. I didn't quit; I was pushed off a cliff. I am returning to my wollega university education at this 2018 E.C.

(Part 3: My Blueprint for Survival)

I have not been waiting for a miracle. I have been drawing a blueprint for my own survival. I am building a fortress, and I am asking for €100,000 for the materials to construct it.

€60,000 for a Highroof Vehicle: This is not just a vehicle. It is the engine of my liberation. It will be the income that pays for the medicine that keeps my lungs from scarring, the fuel that gets me to the doctors who keep me alive. It is my livelihood and my lifeline, the very foundation of my fortress.

€21,000 for a Personal Car (Suzuki Dzire): This is my emergency escape route. This is my lifeboat. This is the weapon I will use to fight back against death itself.

Asthma is a chronic and life-threatening disease that makes the airways in the lungs narrow and swollen. It also produces extra thick mucus that blocks the flow of air. During an asthma attack, the airway muscles tighten, the walls swell, and the mucus can completely block the airways — cutting off oxygen and causing death within minutes if help is not reached quickly.

That is why having a personal car is not a luxury; it is the difference between my next breath and my last. When an attack begins, the clock doesn't just start ticking—it explodes. Every second is a lifetime. A car means I can win that race against death. Without it, I am just waiting, hoping, praying that a stranger's mercy will arrive before my lungs give out. I am done with hoping. I need to act.

€19,000 for an Emergency Fund: This is the reinforced walls of my fortress. It is the shield that ensures a sudden medical crisis or a broken-down vehicle cannot breach my defenses and send me tumbling back into the abyss.

This is not a plea for charity. It is a request for the tools to win a war for my own life.

(Part 4: The Warrior's Proof)

You might look at my story and ask, "Can he truly handle this?" Look closer. My life is not a story of survival; it is a testament to defiance.

After they cut me open in Grade 8, what did I do? I lay in that hospital bed, the taste of anesthesia still in my mouth, and I studied. I didn't just pass my national exam that year; I scored 86% on my Grade 8 national exam, not as a healthy student, but as a warrior fighting through pain, taking the exam immediately after my surgery. When I failed my Grade 12 exam, the world saw a failure. I saw a mountain to conquer. I joined a remedial program and roared back with a score of 306/400.

But my true test of fire was in 2016 E.C. While my body was still a battlefield of chronic pain, I fought a war on two fronts. I pursued a Computer Science degree in a grueling weekend program and prepared for the Ethiopian private university entrance exam— one of the hardest in Country. The result? I earned a 3.48 GPA and became one of only 5 students out of 487 in our entire region to pass that entrance exam with a score of 304/600.

I have already proven I can achieve the impossible. I have climbed mountains with my body tied in knots. The only thing I have ever lacked is the tool to defeat the final, most ruthless enemy: the distance between my gasping lungs and the hospital that can save them.

(Part 5: The Call to Arms)

I have the blueprint. I have the warrior's spirit. I have a history of turning pain into power. All I need is the chance to build my fortress.

Your support is not a donation. It is an investment in a life that refuses to be extinguished. You are not just helping a student; you are arming a soldier in the fight for his own breath. You are giving a young man the chance to not just survive, but to thrive, to learn, and to one day build technologies that help others breathe easier.

Without this fortress, the abyss will claim me. The fall is not a risk; it is a certainty.

Please, help me build my fortress. Thank you.