Razan Alsous: from pharmacist to cheese maker
Image: A magenta border, with a fully lit Hanukía in cyans, in white: "Eight Refugee Stories for Chanukah" and the Birmingham Progressive Synagogue logo, "celebrating Birmingham as a City of Sanctuary". Centrally on white, in cyan: Razan Alsous From pharmacist to award winning cheese maker.
Razan Alsous sought asylum from Syria with her husband and three children in the UK at the end of 2012. By 2014, Razan and her family were living in West Yorkshire. But Razan could not find halloumi cheese in local grocery stores. ‘Halloumi is a staple food in Syria, mainly for breakfast with bread and olives,’ she told UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency. And suddenly she got an idea. ‘We are in Yorkshire where the milk is wonderful. Why not make halloumi here?’
Razan started producing halloumi in a small, rented shop in Halifax, West Yorkshire. ‘I had never produced cheese before. I was a pharmacist in Syria!’ she said. Today, Razan heads the Yorkshire Dama Cheese Company
Her business grew steadily, and now Yorkshire Dama’s Squeaky Cheese has won many food awards. ‘It’s good to be recognised for the hard work I put into this,’ she said. The UK has given her a lifeline and a home, and she’s grateful for both. ’My company’s name includes my homeland – that is Dama, for Damascus – but now this is my home. So when people ask where I am from, I say, “I am from Yorkshire”.’Adapted from: https://www.unhcr.org/uk/news/stories/2018/4/5ac632a94/syrians-squeaky-cheese-hit-british-consumers.html