Hala Akari is a member of the Swedish Syrian Alliance. Originally from Homs in Syria, she moved to Greece in the 1990s, and then to the small town of Mariestad, Sweden where she lives with her husband and children.
In Mariestad, she has tried to bridge the gap between "Swedes" and "newcomers" by organising pioneering cultural events in her local library, something which has won her national press coverage in Sweden - not all of it good.
Filmed at EUROCITIES Social Affairs Forum, Athens, 17-19 October 2016.
