Help Us Fully Launch a Social Enterprise Bakery and Library in Damascus

At this critical moment in Syria’s history, spaces that bring people together around culture, learning, and community are more important than ever. We need your support to help fully launch one such space in the coming weeks.

After decades of authoritarian rule and 14 years of devastating conflict, Syrian society continues to face enormous challenges: displacement, economic hardship, social fragmentation, and long isolation from the wider world.

As a Syrian journalist returning home after years abroad, and an American baker and social entrepreneur who has worked with Syrian communities since 2013, we founded Al-Manhal: a bakery, library, and cultural space, which is currently partially open. With your support we hope to complete its full launch very soon.

 Last year, we found a beautiful but neglected space and were immediately captivated by it. The shop sits on the historic Straight Street, mentioned by name in the Bible; a place where communities, ideas, and cultures have intersected for thousands of years.

We began raising money through small fundraising events held in Paris, London, New York, and elsewhere, while working to rent and restore the space and refine our vision: to use local ingredients and traditional techniques to create innovative baked goods rooted in the country’s rich cultural and agricultural heritage, using the century-old wood oven that had stood abandoned for fifty years.

At the same time, we are working to make books and knowledge more accessible by offering titles that many have struggled to obtain because of financial and logistical barriers. Our collection focuses on history, literature, and culture, encouraging learning, dialogue, and a deeper understanding of the region and the wider world.

We also plan to host events, author talks, book signings, workshops, and training courses that contribute to local civic and cultural life.

In our own modest way, we hope Al-Manhal can help rebuild spaces of encounter, conversation, and shared belonging.

Al-Manhal celebrates the local ethnic, cultural, and linguistic diversity and introduces visitors to the richness of the country’s social and historical tapestry.

Our small team, which we hope to expand with your support, already includes individuals rebuilding their lives after years of imprisonment, as well as people with disabilities.

Today we are in the final stretch. We opened several months ago and have begun baking bread and pastries daily, serving specialty coffee, and welcoming guests into the space several days a week. We have also launched a lending library, with a modest yet important collection of books. However, we are currently operating at a loss and have had to borrow money from friends who believed in the project. 

We now need support to repay those debts; cover rent and legal expenses; hire additional staff to allow us to expand our operating hours; complete the long restoration process, including our wood oven; purchase additional furniture such as chairs, tables, and bookshelves; procure additional equipment such as a bread slicer, sheeter, and ice machine; and pay for several tons of local, organic wheat that we will use throughout the coming year.

Our goal is to raise $55,000 so we can fully launch and stabilize the space in the coming months.

We recognize this is not an insignificant amount of money, but we have a clear path for achieving sustainability with this injection of capital. In addition to paying off our debt, this money will enable us to significantly expand our seating area with the addition of a mezzanine. The purchase of a bread slicer will enable us to tap into the wholesale market, and our investment in solar panels will eliminate our usage of state electricity, which is intermittent and extremely expensive. The additional equipment we will procure will enable us to diversity and professionalize our product offerings. And finally, our grand opening will also be accompanied by an expansion of our staff and our operating hours. 

Al-Manhal is a social enterprise, not a profit-driven business. Once we do start earning a profit, all of this money will then be injected back into the project, allowing us to greater serve our community by making some of products more affordable to the 90% of Syrians living in poverty, and by allowing us to fund classes and events that will bring people together in meaningful ways in our space.  

 This campaign is administered through Brant Stewart’s registered nonprofit organization in the United States, and donations from U.S. supporters may therefore be tax-deductible as permitted by law. All donations will be received, administered, and accounted for in the United States and used to support the opening and operation of Al-Manhal.

Please help us ensure that Al-Manhal succeeds, whether by donating or by sharing this campaign with others. We would be deeply grateful.

Brant Stewart & Asser Khattab

We would like to acknowledge and thank Nick McKerl for the beautiful video he shot and edited for us, as well as the many other generous people who have donated to get us where we are today. We feel honored that you share in our vision for our project, and we look forward to making an impact in our community, together with your support.