The Christian Science Monitor

Not just a Western effort: immigrants helping immigrants

Stephen Watt (l.) and Wasim Meslmani stand together on Parliament Street, the first place they took a walk in Toronto when Mr. Meslmani arrived in Canada this year on Aug. 2.

The story began with a Canadian man named Stephen Watt. A man who, like thousands of other citizens of this country, was jolted in 2015 from the comforts of his middle-class life to aid victims of far-off conflict in Syria.

But Mr. Watt's narrative, one that he's the first to admit is typical, turned into a story that centers just as much around a Syrian man named Wasim Meslmani: a refugee whom Watt helped bring to Canada, yet who in his own act of benevolence, became the “go-to guy” for newcomers here before he even arrived.

The two, on a recent Sunday afternoon, sit in Watt’s living room in Toronto. They bear an uncanny resemblance: fair-skinned with beards shaven the same way. “We often get mistaken as brothers,” says Watt, Mr. Meslmani agreeing with a nod and shy laugh.

They are about to film a video for the Facebook page

Mobilizing to helpAid from afar‘We can help one another’

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