Abdul Halim al-Attar walked through the streets of Beirut with his daughter Reem asleep on his shoulder. She was 4 years old. As he carried her, he offered pens to passing cars under a sun that spared no one.
Someone took a photo. It was the summer of 2015, and that image traveled around the world.
In Oslo, a journalist named Gissur Simonarson saw the photo and could not just move on. He launched an Indiegogo campaign with a modest goal: 5.000 dollars for that family. Three months later, the campaign had raised 188.685 dollars. Almost forty times more than he had asked for.
Al-Attar is Palestinian, born in the Yarmouk refugee camp near Damascus. There, he worked in a chocolate factory before the war forced him to flee to Lebanon.
With the money, he opened a bakery in the Ared Jaloul neighborhood. Then came a kebab shop. Then, a small restaurant. Today, he employs 16 Syrian refugees who, like him, arrived in Beirut with nothing.
He moved his children from the single room they shared into a two-room apartment. His son Abdullelah, 9 years old, returned to school after three years without setting foot in a classroom. Reem now has toys of her own.
“When God wants to give you something, you receive it”, said al-Attar with a smile as he prepared a chicken sandwich for a customer.
The road was not easy: bank fees took part of the money, and he is still waiting for the rest. But every morning he opens his bakery and gives work to those who, like him once, had nowhere to turn.
