Eight thousand people were killed and 20,000 injured in Nepal’s 7.8-magnitude earthquake on April 25. Some 900,000 children remain in fragile makeshift tents.

Back home in the Hamilton area, Ashley Yu is happy, healthy, has a home and is finishing up her studies as an International Baccalaureate student. Until a few weeks ago, Yu was busily preparing for her prom, saving up her pennies to purchase a stunning dress, tickets and a luxurious limo rental.

Then the dichotomy of the two worlds struck loudly and clearly.

A week before her prom, Yu donated the money she had saved to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and opted not to attend. The president of Ancaster High’s Free the Children: We Act Club also started a fundraiser for earthquake survivors called Ditching Prom For Nepal.

Yu said many of her co-curricular activities at Ancaster High have involved philanthropy and Ditching Prom For Nepal is a natural continuation of that work.

In the first few days of her campaign, Yu’s closest friends and family raised $125. She also received a donation from a TEDx women’s conference in downtown Hamilton last week. She is now reaching out to the public for donations.

Yu said she is particularly worried about the young girls and women affected by the earthquake.

“...human trafficking rates will inevitably increase in accordance with a natural disaster,” she said. “Urgent humanitarian aid is needed to combat cross-border trafficking and exploitation.”

Yu has been a member of the YWCA Hamilton’s Young Women’s Advisory Council for the past two years and feels “that any humanitarian crisis affecting my sisters overseas affects me.”

For more on Ditching Prom For Nepal, visit www.gofundme.com/v6by5c.