Lara’s family was seeking a safer life for their daughter after leaving war-torn Syria. 

Since arriving in the UK they have had to face another life-threatening situation: they found out her heart was working at only 10%. 

Lara’s dad, Mohamed, shared their story.

"We had to leave Syria because of the war; it was unsafe. We moved to Lebanon where Lara was born. She was a beautiful, cheerful and vibrant child. But Lebanon was also unsafe for us and offered no future. We came to the UK in 2021 for a better life for all of us, especially for Lara.

Lara went to nursery school and was a very happy child, especially when her brother Jude was born. She was so excited to play with him as they grew up.

At the beginning of 2023 Lara contracted a virus. Lara stopped eating, she lost weight and she completely changed. She didn’t want to play, just wanted to sleep, made strange noises, and preferred fluids to solid food.

We took her to the doctor several times and they told us everything was fine. They said it was just a virus, but we weren’t comfortable with it. We started filming Lara every day.

In June 2023, we were preparing for Lara’s fifth birthday. Lara got sick again. We went to the doctor and showed them everything we had filmed. The doctor was silent and said she would have to go to the hospital.

Although we live in Scotland we had to go to the Freeman Hospital in Newcastle where they assessed Lara’s condition for a heart transplant. She was so ill that we feared she might have a heart attack during the journey.

They put her on a Berlin Heart. Finding a suitable heart was going to be very difficult. We were devastated and tired.

The Berlin heart also has risks so we feared bleeding or strokes that could end her life.

Then we met Jen, our Family Support Worker from Rainbow Trust.