TRURO, N.S. — You could’ve heard a pin drop.
“They asked me what’s your number. I told them I’m not a number I’m a human being,” the speaker and former Syrian refugee said, as he addressed the Truro and Colchester Chamber of Commerce business luncheon.
“Don’t ask me, what’s your number?” Tareq Hadhad said, of his response to the questioner at the United Nations in Lebanon. “Ask me who I am? Ask me what’s my name? Then I realized that being refugees means you lost everything you have been building since you were born. It means you have lost everything for your family as well. The most important thing? Losing your sense of belonging because you became numbers….
“Living in a refugee camp means that you stay in the nights when the temperature gets minus 10 in a tent where there is no heating system. And I was hearing my siblings screaming because of the cold.”
In just over a year since coming to Canada, Hadhad and his family have gone from having literally nothing but the clothes on their back to owning one of the top 10 chocolate companies in the country.
As guest speaker at the chamber luncheon, Hadhad held an audience of more than 50 people transfixed as he relayed the story of how his family became embroiled in a war they wanted no involvement with, as the Syrian army battled an army of rebels: a story of how their home and a successful chocolate business were bombed into ruins, of fleeing their home country amid hopelessness and despair and of how they dragged themselves from the rubble and nameless refugee existence to a “heartwarming” start of a successful new life in a new country.
“They asked me what’s your number. I told them I’m not a number I’m a human being,” the speaker and former Syrian refugee said, as he addressed the Truro and Colchester Chamber of Commerce business luncheon.
“Don’t ask me, what’s your number?” Tareq Hadhad said, of his response to the questioner at the United Nations in Lebanon. “Ask me who I am? Ask me what’s my name? Then I realized that being refugees means you lost everything you have been building since you were born. It means you have lost everything for your family as well. The most important thing? Losing your sense of belonging because you became numbers….
“Living in a refugee camp means that you stay in the nights when the temperature gets minus 10 in a tent where there is no heating system. And I was hearing my siblings screaming because of the cold.”
In just over a year since coming to Canada, Hadhad and his family have gone from having literally nothing but the clothes on their back to owning one of the top 10 chocolate companies in the country.
As guest speaker at the chamber luncheon, Hadhad held an audience of more than 50 people transfixed as he relayed the story of how his family became embroiled in a war they wanted no involvement with, as the Syrian army battled an army of rebels: a story of how their home and a successful chocolate business were bombed into ruins, of fleeing their home country amid hopelessness and despair and of how they dragged themselves from the rubble and nameless refugee existence to a “heartwarming” start of a successful new life in a new country.
Now 24, Hadhad was just two years shy of becoming a doctor when the war in Syria interrupted his medical studies and destroyed the life his family knew.
“Me and my family were really preparing everything to be a bright future,” he told his chamber audience.
In 2012, when the bombs began dropping in his region, the chocolate business his father built from scratch in 1980 was doing well, with a distribution network that exported specialized sweets throughout the Middle East to Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq and European countries beyond.
“It was a really hard time just to see the eyes of the family. They were really frightened, afraid that at any moment the roof could collapse on our heads.”
As the bombs got closer, they moved out of their home, just days before it and everything else they had worked for was destroyed.
“We lost our factory that my father built so hard, in a bombing too,” Hadhad said, of the event that left the family patriarch stilled and empty with shock.
“For three days he didn’t speak to anybody. He was just telling us ‘everything has gone, everything has gone,’” he said.
“We told the family this is not time for me to do medicine, it’s time to escape… we realized it was time to leave Syria. It was a hard decision.”
After reaching Lebanon, the family settled into a refugee camp where their identities were reduced to nameless numbers, just another small group among a swarm of 2.5 million refugees being crammed into a country whose indigenous population numbered only four million.
But Hadhad, couldn’t stand it, he couldn’t be still.
“I couldn’t imagine that I would just stay like that. I told the family that I am leaving the camp.”
He then moved to the United Nations office where he told them he wanted to establish a volunteer team to assist others.
“After one year we became a local organization in Lebanon helping other refugees,” Hadhad said of the team of like-minded young Syrians he formed.
During the process, Hadhad determined he wanted to complete his medical studies and when a friend told him the Canadian embassy in Lebanon was offering scholarships, he didn’t hesitate to apply.
Working through various complications, Hadhad was eventually successful in his efforts and on Dec. 19, 2015, he left Lebanon for Canada. After initially arriving in Toronto, he was redirected to Halifax, a city he had never even heard of. Likewise, when he arrived at the airport and was told he was going to Antigonish.
“I didn’t know where I was coming. I didn’t know anything about this country,” he said. “I didn’t know who I would meet, who would receive me.”
Any reservations he might have held, however, were immediately erased when he ran down the steps in the arrival area and was greeted by the “most heartwarming… amazing people.”
“They didn’t know my name. They didn’t know who I am. They didn’t know my picture. They didn’t ask about my background, about my religion, why I left Syria, where I’m coming from. They didn’t ask about all of these things. Everything they cared about, that I’m a human being.”
A week later, his family followed him to Canada where they took up residence in a fully furnished house provided by the host committee. They were provided with clothes and other necessities and welcomed into a community that Hadhad proudly said has supported them at every turn.
Hadhad took up biology studies at St. Francis Xavier, eventually, his father started making chocolate again and a new company – Peace by Chocolate – was born.
It has been growing steadily since and currently provides part-time employment for eight people. Soon, however, the business will be expanding into a larger facility where Hadhad said they expect to provide 15 full-time jobs.
“So now, Peace by Chocolate is not only about chocolate. It is an initiative to everybody to think about how newcomers (can) contribute in their new home country. How they work really hard to rebuild their lives after they lose everything,” he said.
And the overall message Hadhad left with his audience was this: “Whenever you offer kindness you will receive kindness, because kindness begets kindness. Hate begets anxiety,” he said. “Our home is always peace and our heart is full of freedom.”
