Mayada Abo Chehwan was born in 1971 in the District of Hama in Syria. She is married to Walid Daher, a pharmacist and together they have two daughters Nada and Miril. Walid owned a pharmacy in their hometown and was once able to provide a decent living for his family until the civil war erupted in Syria.
In 2012, Islamist fighters began attacking her mostly Christian hometown. Her house and her husband’s Pharmacy were bombed several times. Her family escaped death several times and was forced to flee under fire. They spent months in neighboring towns and in Lebanon where they could not afford the cost of living. Eventually, they came back home but were forced to flee again after violent shelling of their town resumed. They sold their car and moved to an undesirable area in Iraq where they lived in dire conditions and their health began to sharply deteriorate. One of her daughters was now diagnosed with diabetes and the other was suffering from severe anxiety, while her husband became partially paralyzed from heart disease and could no longer work.
When their finances collapsed, her teenage daughters went looking for jobs but were unsuccessful due to discrimination and sexual harassment. Threats of ending up as sex slaves became serious after a group of men attempted to abduct one of the daughters.
Desperate and broke Mayada was on the verge of collapsing. She even put up her own kidney for sale to provide food and medication to her family. However, TNF operatives learnt about Mayada from one of her relatives they had rescued from ISIS in Syria. Teams on the ground were immediately dispatched and successfully relocated the family to a safe area where they offered them needed care and assistance. TNF continues to protect and support Mayada and her family, and is helping them process their immigration application to Australia. #lovethyneighbor #tnf #thenazarenefund