Today we’d like to introduce you to Murad Nofal.
Hi Murad, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
I’m the son of two amazing refugees and the creative director and founder of Wear The Peace, a brand fighting for a better future. I moved out from Chicago in 2020 to the valley for creative inspiration and I’m happy and proud to call this place home and have created more than I ever have compared to when I was in Chicago. The biggest thing for me was to be in a place where I can go outside any time of the year and be able to connect with fellow creatives. Our entire operation and team is still running out of Chicago and I do visit every month for a couple of days to visit my family and for monthly brand meetings.
In the summer of 2014, I visited the world’s largest refugee camp at the time, The Zaatari refugee camp. I was visiting my family in Jordan as I did every summer and my cousins at the time were fundraising and buying items for refugee families in the camp such as water bottles, towels, clothing, food, etc.
I witnessed people in horrendous living conditions all because their country was torn apart by war. The Zaatari camp, at the time, was quickly transforming towards becoming a permanent living space for many of the refugees in the camp. My grandparents have lived in a refugee camp in Jordan since 1975 and the camp eventually turned into a permanent residency, an area where supermarkets, barbershops, and grocery stores began to pop up making the living condition normal for the residents. I kept contemplating how this could happen in today’s time, and I questioned “why do humans have to live like this? Even though I knew about the unjust world we live in, seeing it in person was a whole different story.
In 2016 I got together with one of my good friends, Mustafa, and sat in my garage and brainstormed how we could make a difference. We are both children of refugees and we both saw the direct outcome of the refugee crisis. After weeks of conversations, we came up with the brand, Wear The Peace, and made it a statement to ensure that the brand sent loving messages, spread awareness to issues around the world, and gave back to the humans who need it most. Wear The Peace is a brand that believes “Each one of us can make a difference. Together we make change.” Wear The Peace encapsulated this idea of “together we make change” into the brand by creating their Buy One Give One initiative and The All Profits initiative, which allows customers to directly make an impact on another human’s life just by purchasing from the brand. To date, we’ve been able to donate over 92,000 articles of brand-new clothing to people in need around the world where new clothing is a luxury. We’ve also been able to donate over $42,688 to different humanitarian causes such as sending girls in conflict areas to school, feeding families in famine-stricken countries, building water wells, and much more.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
The journey with Wear The Peace has been nothing but smooth, haha. There has been a lot of amazing times and a lot of tough times.
In terms of work, in 2016, Wear The Peace was started while both Mustafa and I were full-time schools and full-time work at At&t and Nordstrom respectively. We would spend the night hours just working on the little gritty things to get us up and going. We both decided to quit our full-time jobs in 2017 and pursue Wear The Peace full-time and give it the attention it deserves. We would rent a van and go to any event we can get into, whether it was little events in Chicago where we would end up selling only $50 worth of clothing or renting vans and driving to Washington D.C, Orlando, Arizona, Houston, Toronto, etc. for bigger events. It was A LOT of work for two guys and until 2019, my business partner and I were doing everything within the company. It consumed us and it affected other parts of our lives, it was hard for us to stay connected with our friends let alone our own families with our 15-hour work days. Gym was not an option, our health was affected by sleepless nights, holding up any relationships was impossible. It’s one consequence from committing your whole life to a goal like this that many people don’t talk about. On top of that, we were barely getting paid because our business model was centered around giving back. We didn’t mind at the time but it definitely did put strain on our minds, and we had conversations about stopping the whole thing because of it.
Other problems we had were not being able to monetize any of our products because we spoke about refugees. This made it super difficult at the time because companies need to advertise to compete and we didn’t even get the chance because all of our ads would get disapproved because of what our page stood for and the products we had.
Other struggles.
– Driving all the way to Canada to be denied at customs for custom form down incorrectly for inventory, this was August of 2018 and we spend all of winter of 2018 with summer clothing because we didn’t sell any of it and we had no money to purchase winter clothing.
– Hiring people for positions that have the same strive to change the world but at the same time being able to bring in revenue to pay those people.
– Working day in and day out for little to no money for so long, just to not know where this business will go for the first five years
As you know, we’re big fans of Wear The Peace. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
Wear The Peace is a clothing brand dedicated to changing the world. Started in 2016, we sell products with messages that unite and want people to be walking activists just by wearing our clothing. Our buy one give one initiative has helped us donate over 92,000 articles of brand new clothing to people in need, whether it’s a refugee camp in Bangladesh or homeless families in Chicago, every purchase makes a difference. We’ve also been able to donate over $42,000 to send girls in war-torn areas to school, donate over 2 million gallons of clean drinking water, provide thousands of food packages for families in need, and much more. We use our social media to inform and remind people about what’s going on around the world. This has helped fundraise over $1.5 million to different charities around the world.
One thing I’m most proud of is our social media audience and how strongly they care for other humans, even if they look different then themselves. We believe that we do an amazing job with our due diligence when we guide people to certain charities. We check all their tax audits, financial records, and ultimately how they spend their money before we recommend that charity to our followers. Nowadays, many charities are not doing what they claim to be doing. For example, when we were researching charities for our 988 mental health collection to donate proceeds of sales to, it took us hours for the mere fact that all the charities we were researching were spending in a way that can all be described as inhumane. A charity where the board is receiving over 20% of all donations coming in should never be donated to because it shows that they’re not in it for the cause. For example, this certain charity had 20% off revenue going towards the board and 40% going towards other expenses, meaning that if someone donated $100, only $40 would actually be going towards the cause. I love the fact that we’re able to not only inform people about what’s going on around the world but lead people to organizations that actually care.
We’re known mostly for our hoodies, 70% of all sales throughout the year are our hoodies. People love the colors and quality we offer alongside the message they want to spread. Knowing their doing good just by purchasing an article of clothing is also a big reason why many people shop with us.
What does success mean to you?
For me, success is being able to make an impact on others’ lives while being able to stay happy myself. I think this job has brought me the most happiness I’ve ever had. Visiting places like Wajir County, Kenya or refugee camps in Jordan alongside researching all these humanitarian issues around the world really made me grateful for everything I have. I make sure to take time and consciously thank God for my vision, my brain and the facility to reason and respond to these questions. Nothing brings me more happiness than knowing someone is feeling even a tad bit better because of a donation we made.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.wearthepeace.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wearthepeace
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WearThePeaceClothing/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/WearThePeaceCo/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@WearThePeace
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@wearthepeaceco
Image Credits
Omri Massarwe Hinda Akel
