Our (short) Story
Overcome International was started to honor the sacrifice of a mother, who fled Romania in 1988 with her two children and navigated two borders before arriving in the United States to escape socialist/communist persecution.
Overcome International was started when, upon watching TV and seeing refugees from Ukraine crossing an international border with a bag or two just days after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, we could not stand by and do nothing. We felt compelled to act, we had to jump to their aid, and we had to help tell their story.
These two tectonic plates, one grinding for thirty years, the other ramming into it in February 2022, created the necessary earthquake to get us motivated to start this effort. We dedicate it to those who have resisted, fled, or even died in the process of overcoming their oppressive circumstances – may we learn from you and be brave like you.
What drives us
Over an entire century, millions have been harmed by an ideology; an estimated 125 million people have died under the NAZI and Socialist/Communist regimes of the 1900’s. Millions more have died at the hands of other would-be do-gooders and ideologues. This is what we call halogaist – well-intentioned ideologues with half-truths and pretenses, ultimately, destroying the lives of so many. Halogaist is the subtle and tolerated corruption, the related imbalance of power among social institutions (governmental, religious, educational, economic, family), and natural human tendencies toward safety and comfort, conspiring together to produce tyranny.
It is the call of our generation to jump in and help those fleeing and resisting, to preserve history, to learn from the past, and to educate the current generation.
We hope you join us in making this a better world.
This is how we do it …
Direct giving and involvement
We collect donations and physically go, and we provide humanitarian aid help to those who are resisting and those fleeing tyranny.
Education and expanding our vision
We educate ourselves from books, videos, classes, and even educational trips to the places and cultures affected by tyranny.
Documenting and preserving the past
We preserve the stories of those resisting and fleeing tyranny through our Halogaist Visual Archive project (HAVA). These stories are incontrovertible evidence and invaluable primary-source information.