Rachel Accurso, the YouTube star better known to children and parents as Ms. Rachel, announced last week that she will present Colors That Survived, an exhibition and fundraiser featuring artworks created by children in Gaza.
The works will be exhibited Tuesday at Caelum Gallery in New York’s Chelsea neighborhood. They have also been reproduced as limited-edition prints of 20, priced at $200 each, and will be available for purchase through January 30 via Artists Support, a nonprofit that collaborates with artists to raise funds for various causes. According to a press release, 100 percent of the proceeds will go to young Palestinian artists.
Accurso—often likened to a contemporary Mr. Rogers and followed by more than 18 million subscribers on YouTube—became outspoken about the plight of children in Gaza after participating in a May 2024 Save the Children fundraiser for children in conflict zones. As part of that effort, she offered personalized Cameo videos, with proceeds benefiting children in Gaza, Sudan, Ukraine, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. She has since faced significant backlash from Zionist groups. StopAntisemitism, an American Zionist watchdog nonprofit that has drawn criticism for doxxing pro-Palestinian activists, alleged last May that Accurso had received funds from the Palestinian militant group Hamas—an accusation she described as “patently false” and “absurd.”
The backlash has not slowed Accurso’s advocacy. She has continued to speak out about the conditions facing children in Gaza and, in November, wore a custom gown embroidered with artwork by children in Gaza to the Glamour Women of the Year Awards. Accurso, one of the evening’s honorees, also carried photographs of the children who created each artwork while walking the red carpet.
They are my family, by Maha, a Gazan child participating in the Artists Support fundraiser.
“I am forever changed by connecting with these incredible children from Gaza,” Accurso said in a statement announcing this month’s fundraiser. “They share their powerful art, stories, and hopes for the future with such courage in the face of unimaginable hardship.”
The exhibition and fundraiser were organized in collaboration with The Voice of Hind Rajab, the Golden Globe–nominated docudrama depicting the aftermath of the killing of Hind Rajab, a five-year-old Palestinian girl, by the Israel Defense Forces in January 2024.
The press release also included a series of quotes from the participating child artists. In one representative statement, Ahmed, a 12-year-old boy, wrote: “It feels like my drawings traveled somewhere I can’t go. New York is a faraway city, but when my drawings reach it, I feel like my voice has reached the whole world. It makes me feel seen and heard. It makes me happy and proud that my voice matters, even if it’s small. Because every drawing I make carries a real story from my life and from other children in Gaza, and every story deserves to be heard.”
