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Wael Aun’s father died when he was 17. The teenager left his village in the south of Syria for Kuwait, where an uncle taught him the fine trade of upholstering furniture.

“I leave school because my family needed the money,” Aun says.

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The youngest of his eight sisters and four brothers was only a year old at the time.

“I must get to working.”

It’s a trade that sustained Aun and his family for 25 years as he roamed in search of work and to escape the war that had torn apart his homeland.

Aun says he likes being his own boss. He proudly lists the upholstery stores he has opened in Syria, Lebanon, Greece and Jordan.

Now, he’s standing in a small workshop in an industrial park on Ottawa’s Sheffield Road, surrounded by the tools of his trade: a sewing machine, a serger, big blocks of foam and slabs of wood with ornate designs. The sign on the brick outside announces, in English and Arabic, the birth of a new business: Wael’s Upholstery.