fbevent

“Congratulations Kickante for being published in Newsweek.”

Published by:

Seung Lee, Newsweek

June 30, 2016

Talal al-Tinawi once dreamed of an affluent life in Damascus, Syria. He was a mechanical engineer by trade, but he owned three clothing stores, an engineering services office, as well as two apartments and a car. But all that was lost when the Syrian civil war erupted in 2011, and al-Tinawi fled Syria to neighboring Lebanon and then arrived in Brazil as a refugee.

Last year, al-Tinawi dreamed up another venture in his new home in Sao Paulo: opening a Syrian restaurant. His engineering degree is not recognized by the Brazilian educational system, so to support his family, he resorted to selling food he makes in his kitchen. To get the money to open the restaurant, he resorted not to a bank but to Kickante, a Brazilian crowdfunding website, to raise the necessary $18,700.

Read the full article in Newsweek.