Marie Gracie never met the boy, but his fate changed her life. On 2 September 2015, three-year-old Alan Kurdi washed up, drowned, on a Turkish beach. His family were Syrian refugees, trying to reach Europe. Journalist Nilüfer Demir took a photo. Alan lies face down, in a T-shirt and shorts. His feet are so tiny. His hands are upturned, facing the sky.
“I’m a mother,” says Gracie, an artist from Milton Keynes. “Can you imagine anything worse than your child being in the news like that?” She reached out to her local chapter of Refugees Welcome, set up in the wake of the Syrian war.
