Khaldoun Fakhury, his wife and two daughters fled Syria in the middle of the night after their home and restaurant were bombed. It was a dangerous journey through the mountains before they finally reached neighbouring Jordan, where they spent two years in a refugee camp before coming to Surrey.
Grateful to be in Canada but struggling to start over, Amer Alhindawi is eager to start work as a carpenter so he can support his wife and five children but the biggest obstacle to finding a job is English.
READ MORE: Syrian refugees: How you can help
“There’s a year-and-a-half waiting list to enter a class. That’s one of the challenges,” he said through a translator.
Both families are in the hole financially, owing the Canadian government more than $12,000 combined for their flights from Syria to Canada.
Fakhury said that he “promises the Canadian people that they will not stay on welfare and that Syrian people are hard workers. In the past they’ve always worked and earned their money.”
Fakhury hopes to pass that work ethic down to his children. Ten-year-old Sara is excited to be back in school and says she wants to be a teacher when she grows up.
-With files from Rumina Daya
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