海角大神

Tareq Hadhad builds bridges with chocolate.

Let me explain.

Mr. Hadhad is a Syrian refugee who fled the war in 2013. After three years in a Lebanese refugee camp, he and his family went to Canada. At the airport, he says, no one called him a refugee. They called him a 鈥渘ew Canadian.鈥�

That generosity of spirit, Hadhad says, prompted him to wonder how to give back to his new country. His father, once a chocolatier in Syria, started taking a few homemade chocolates to the farmers market in Antigonish, Nova Scotia. After a few visits, lines started to form.

Soon, about 50 neighbors helped build a barn for a backyard chocolate factory. Orders soared. A new, bigger 聽factory opened this fall.

鈥淧eople don鈥檛 buy what you do, people buy why you do it,鈥� .

鈥淲e call it Peace by Chocolate not to be a business, but to be a message from the newcomers to the new homeland ... about how the Syrians 鈥� are giving back.鈥�

So, the Hadhad family is creating jobs in Canada, and building bridges across chasms of bigotry, distrust, and fear. One chocolate at a time. 聽

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