When they arrived in London, Paula Vergara and Federico Pereanez needed help to get on their feet in Canada.
Fifteen years later, the couple own a London-based social media and marketing business that keeps them busy with work they love -- and say they want to give back to the country that welcomed them.
“When we got here, we had nothing. We couldn’t speak any English - I couldn’t even ask for a coffee,” says Paula, who arrived in London in 2004 with her family.
“We got help from Ontario Works, the food bank, churches, OSAP (Ontario Student Assistance Program). You don’t see that in Colombia and we wanted to say thank you.”
In February -- less than a year after launching a business called Half & Half Social -- the couple started a new social media campaign that aims to promote other small businesses and community organizations across London.
“We are a small business. We know how difficult it is. We wanted to provide the support to entrepreneurs and also showcase the city and events,” says Paula.
They everyone who dreams of becoming an entrepreneur to follow their ambition.
“If someone asks me should I start my own business. I say do it. If you are willing to eat tuna and crackers do it,” adds Paula, with a laugh.  “Yes, it’s not easy,” agrees Federico. “But everyone should try. We know of very successful stories of immigrants.”
But like many immigrants, Federico and Paula know all about taking chances.
The couple had been working together at a call centre in Colombia when Paula’s family decided to move to Canada in search of new opportunities. She planned her good-byes, but just before she left, Federico asked her to marry him. Paula said she would, but only if he came to Canada. 
“I said ‘see you there.’” Federico says.
Once they settled in Canada, Federico pursued work in motion graphics and web design. He took courses and became experienced. Paula also started learned graphic design.
Federico freelanced for a decade, working for production companies in London and Toronto, while Paula worked as a supervisor at a call centre and did freelance on the side.
In March 2018, the couple -- who have two little girls -- took another chance and launched Half&Half Social. Their clients include the City of London, area restaurants and businesses, as well as Colombia-based businesses.
“We were not expecting to get rich, but we like it,” says Paula.
Then this year, they started #half&halfonthego a social media campaign to showcase “all aspects of life in London, Ontario.”
The goal is to highlight small businesses and help them build a social media profile. They have done several videos for social media, but are looking for sponsors to help them continue the campaign.
 “We love what we do,” says Paula. “We want to keep doing it.”

You know it’s going to be a sweet interview, when there’s candy on the table. 
And that’s a given, when the interview subject is Nader Basha, founder of London’s Basha Handy Candy -- a soft, squishy confectionery better known to many Syrians as “Shutti Mutti”.
Nader, a Syrian refugee who arrived in London in 2015, launched the business with his brother last year, carrying on a family tradition that started across the world nearly 70 years ago. 
The first challenge in starting his own business was saving enough money to get started, says Nader. The next challenge was taking such a big risk. 
“When you are a newcomer, every dollar counts for you,” says Nader. “That’s a hard step to take. A few thousand dollars to start is like millions for a newcomer, so sometimes people are scared to lose money in the investment.”
His advice to newcomers who dream of their own business is “Just try it.” 
 “After being here for years, you may regret it if you didn’t try.”
It was his grandfather who first began making and selling Shutti Mutti back in Syria in 1948. 
He continued making candy in Jordan after fleeing war in Syria in 1982, and a decade later, Nader’s father joined the business, which is still open today.
Born a Syrian refugee, Nader grew up in Jordan. He has a bachelor’s degree in business, but his passion has always been making candy. 
Tears come to his eyes as he thinks of how proud his late grandfather would be of the brothers.
“He encouraged us. He believed that a refugee needed a profession. It would help them to help themselves,” says Nader. Nader started working as soon as possible, after immigrating to Canada along with his mom and two sisters.
For two years, he saved up, taking on customer service jobs -- like driving for Uber -- that would allow him to talk to people and practice his English. He also got a job at Cargill Canada. 
Meanwhile, he started checking out the local candy and noticed there was nothing like Shutti Mutti.
That gave him hope. 
When his brother emigrated to Canada, they rented a small factory on Quebec street, bought some used equipment and then started making candy. 
They gave samples to their friends, family and coworkers. It was a hit, especially with immigrants from Middle Eastern countries whose faces would often light up at the sight.
 “They would remember it from their childhood. That’s a good feeling,” says Nader. 
 He knew it wouldn’t be easy to convince new stores to sell his products so he brought samples to convenience stores in Southwestern Ontario. 
This fall, the brothers got a deal with a national distribution company, which is helping them achieve their dream to “build a Canadian brand of this candy,” Nader says.
“I like candy. When you eat candy, you forget all your problems - at least during the time you are eating it,” he says with a laugh. “It’s a simple way."

Fourteen years after they arrived in Canada, Ahmad Ali and Huda Mahmud smile and laugh as they talk about their life together here. They are quick to praise each other and gush over their three children. They finish each other’s sentences.
You can feel love in the room. It makes perfect sense that the couple operates a thriving wedding photography and video business.
But while their business Diamond Digital Production may seem like a dream come true, it was not part of their dream for a better life when they first arrived in Canada in 2005.
“Since I was 10-years-old, I always loved cameras and taking pictures, but I never thought I’d do it as a business,” says Ahmad.
“He dreamed to be an engineer when he came to Canada. That’s what he went to university for,” says Huda.
“But we rebuilt our life here,” says Ahmad, as Huda agrees and chimes in. “We are happy.” 
They arrived with a different plan. Originally from Iraq, Ahmad was a computer engineer and had experience as a university professor in Libya. Huda was trained in accounting and worked as a teacher.
They had another baby here.  During those early years, the couple took countless pictures and videos of their kids, and family vacations.
Ahmad did get work in computing and Huda in retail, but at the same time, the couple became more passionate about photography and videography.
Many parents take pictures of their kids, but Ahmad and Huda had something else – Ahmad’s comfort with technology. He could learn any editing software fast, and he did. He took some courses while Huda was home with the young kids, then he’d come home and teach her what he learned.  They started doing photography and videos for extended family and friends.
By the time Ahmad lost his job in 2009, they’d already slowly established themselves as a business.
And since then, Diamond Digital has photographed more than 300 weddings, which has Ahmad and Huda make friends and family across London. They also shoot photos and videos for several London agencies, including the London Cross Cultural Learner Centre, Access Centre, the London Middlesex Local Immigration Partnership, the Iraqi Community House and London Muslim Mosque.
It’s hard to believe they are newcomers. They have got to know so many families through their work. They’ve even done weddings for four siblings in the same family.
Ahmad says for their family, the biggest hurdle to overcome in Canada was language. They are grateful to the family who already lived in London when they arrived, and who helped them learn about the city – explaining things in Arabic when necessary.
“People need someone to guide them in a good direction,” says Huda.
Thankful for the way things have gone for their family, they try to spread the word about London as a welcoming community to raise children.
“We always advise our friends from Edmonton and Toronto to come here . . . It’s a family feeling in this city,” says Ahmad. “I tell them London is a good place for families and for kids,” says Huda. “You can have a better life here – safe for their family. And you can travel on the weekend – you want to go to Toronto? You can be there in two hours.” 

Rakhee Chopra arrived in Canada at 24-years-old, just married to a man she had just met. It was St. Patrick’s Day, 2005. The newlyweds moved into her in-laws’ home in St. Catharines, as expected.
Before that, Rakhee had been managing a call centre – and designing clothes on the side – in Bombay, India where she had been born and raised. But in the past 14 years, Rakhee has completely rebuilt her life, to fulfill her dream of creating clothing designed for curvy women and start a social media movement called #empoweryourcurves.
“I just said, ‘this is it,’” she recalls. “I said ‘there are people out there who need what I do.’ I make clothes for myself. I’m curvy and I can’t find clothes for myself here or in India.  And I started sewing for people again.”
Now the owner of a growing Canadian fashion company (www.Rakheechopra.com), Rakhee is also a community builder. She does fashion shows to raise money for Anova London – an agency, she feels “deeply connected to,” because she has been abused in her past – and has volunteered with the London Lesbian Film Festival and Clothing Works.
She started designing and sewing her own clothes when she was only nine-years-old. “I couldn’t find anything for myself. I used to make stuff for curvy women there too,” she says.
She was still doing that on the side of her call-centre job back in India before she immigrated to Canada with her then-husband. After a short time with his “very traditional” parents, the couple moved out and lived in several southwest Ontario cities until they bought a home in London in 2007 and adopted their children.
Life was busy, as it is with children, and Rakhee got a job working retail, but she made time to sew her own clothes, because she couldn’t find anything that felt right for her curvy body.
“I wore men’s clothes at the time,” she says. “In Canada, I wanted to see clothes for myself.”
Then, after a fall from a ladder, she made up her mind to start her own business. For someone who was new to Canada, that meant she had to work hard to meet people and network.
“It felt like putting a mask on sometimes,” she recalls. “I was always telling myself ‘this is for my girls and the other women too who want to look great.’” And she did it. When you get out of your comfort zone, that’s when your growth happens,” she says. 
It wasn’t always easy. She says she lost the support of some friends when she came out as gay.
But she was true to herself and found others, as well as a loyal following for her business. She now has 30 regular clients and has hired an assistant designer and a virtual assistant. She is hiring again, with plans to move into a booth at the Western Fair Farmer’s Market. She aims to be a zero-waste company and donates scraps to a local charity.
And she will continue to support the people and causes that are close to her heart in London, she says.
“London never felt like a city,” she says “Always more like a community to me.”

Originally from the Ivory Coast, Reymond Kouame lived in Gatineau, Quebec, then Sudbury before he moved to London in 2015 with his wife and their three young daughters.
He had arrived in Canada equipped with a bachelor’s degree in agriculture and a master’s degree in environmental science, then went on to complete a bachelor’s in education at Laurentian University in Sudbury.
A year later, he came to London for two co-op placements – getting experience as a student teacher before he started teaching at a French-language school in the area. His wife and daughters joined him and since then, Reymond has been teaching in French elementary schools.
And now, after seeing a need in London, he has ventured out as an entrepreneur.
“Parents are always asking if we can find a tutor in French for them,” he said. “It is difficult to find a French tutor."
This year, he and his two partners started a French tutoring service called FrancoEduc (www.francoeduc.ca).  So far FrancoEduc, which is based out of an office on Leathorne Street, has 10 students, but the vision is to grow as large as Kumon Math & Reading or Oxford Learning Tutoring Services.
Reymond says the business would offer a good source of employment to French-speaking immigrants with a teaching background. “We want to give opportunities to newcomers, so they can have their first Canadian work experience,” he says. “Some people come here, they like London and they don’t speak English. They cannot find work because they don’t have the Canadian experience. We want to give them that.”
Reymond knows how big of a barrier language can be. When his family arrived to London, “English was the biggest challenge,” he says. “We knew we could explain things in our language.” 
He still recalls the French-speaking people who helped his family “make connections,” and even make appointments, in those early days.
Reymond accessed workshops by agencies such as le Carrefour Communautaire Francophone de London (CCFL).
He says London’s French-language community contributed to his family’s integration and development.
More importantly, the community helped his family feel at home.
To other newcomers, his advice is to find people willing to help and work to overcome the language barrier.
“Go outside. Go into the community to talk to people and find people who can help you,” he says. “Don’t be afraid to return to school to learn English. It will be helpful.”

To get a sense of how much has changed for Vasile Caniuca since he arrived in Canada in 2001, you only need to step into his south London construction business.
You will get a glimpse of his story right in the entrance of Millstone Homes: Framed newspaper clippings that show a younger version of Vasile looking tired and haggard after he and six other Romanian stowaways emerged from a steel shipping container at the Halifax Harbour.
Their treacherous journey made international news. Even CNN showed up to get footage of the men who’d risked their lives by crawling into that container 17 days earlier with a little food and a lot of faith. They had spent the final seven days at sea, while a cargo ship carrying the container travelled from Livorno, Italy to Canada.
Vasile and the other refugees had succeeded in their desperate attempt to escape a life of poverty and find opportunity. Along with the media there to greet them, there were police and border security officers. Vasile spent his first night in Canada at a homeless shelter.
Eighteen years later, Vasile is known as a high-end London homebuilder whose company has been employing other Londoners and adding to the city landscape for more than a decade. He drives a nice vehicle, has more than he needs. He has even published an autobiography about his life and his faith. It is called The Grinding of the Millstone.
But success didn’t come overnight.
“I struggled big time,” says Vasile, who moved to Kitchener, then London. There were days when he and his wife were scrounging for loonies and toonies just to put gas in the tank. When he first started his business in London, he felt like people doubted he could do it. He was young, in his 20s, and still just learning English. But he kept working at it because he loved it. He believed in himself and refused to give up, and that’s the advice he gives other newcomers and entrepreneurs.
“Now I have a few things, and I’m happy and glad, but it’s not because I’m so smart, it’s because other people helped me. And God works through people,” says Vasile. “I don’t have enough fingers on my hands to count the people who helped me. People who didn’t really know who I was, but they had faith. They had such a positive impact on me.”
He never forgets the impact they had and says its easy for him to pay it forward. He is involved with his church and does charity work around the world.
“When you make it, look back and bring somebody with you,” he says. “When you see someone without money offer them money. When you see someone who has potential for business, push them in that direction. There is enough pie for everybody.” 

Not all girls went to school when Kay Habib was growing up in Lahore, Pakistan. But her dad wanted his daughters to have the same confidence and opportunities as their brothers.
And he knew that would require an education. So, against the wishes of many friends and relatives, Kay and her sisters went to school. And Kay kept going to school, earning a Master’s degree in interior design in Pakistan, then a Masters of Business Administration (MBA) in Australia, before immigrating to Canada in 2006 with her husband and son
“Education enabled us to find our way, it changed our lives,” says Kay, owner of London interior design company Skill Décor.
These days Kay is helping others find their way. Early this month, she held a grand opening for her new social enterprise called Skilled Accents, which hires women who came to Canada as refugees to sew stylish decorative pillows. Nearly 130 people turned out to the grand opening at Kay’s Hyde Park showroom.
In six years, Kay has achieved more than she was dreaming of, when she moved to London from Toronto in 2013 and set out to start her own interior design business.  
“At first, in London, I felt like I really had to prove myself – being a woman and also being a brown woman,” she says. “A lot of people told me London is conservative and not as open as Toronto, and because of your last name people might not call you.”
“I decided to do my thing and see what happens. People have been so supportive.”
Kay started getting to know people by joining groups for entrepreneurs. The reception she received from Londoners turned out to be the opposite of what she had been told to expect. 
“”There are always people who treat you differently when they see the colour of your skin or find out where are you from, but if you look past the filters people have and focus on your thing – people will see that.”
Her business was growing, but she wanted to do something that had more purpose. She had seen some refugee women who appeared to be struggling in London and started to think about women from her own home country, who may not be having an easy time getting settled.
A friend referred Kay to London’s Cross Cultural Learner Centre, where she met with a sewing group for refugee women. “I went there, and I was like ‘That’s it! These are the people I need,’” says Kay, who launched the social enterprise in May 2018, providing each of her employees with a sewing machine and fabric that had been donated from London stores.
“I felt like I just have to work with them.”