Community development

He grew up with one rule: the Tunisian helps the Tunisian. If you have a dinar, you give a dinar.

What Ksar Said taught him

In Ksar Said, when the grocer was closed, you knocked on a neighbour's door for salt or oil. Joy was shared, and so was sorrow. "So for me today, humanitarian assistance is something normal," Karim says. "It's something I grew up with."

The neighbourhood also had its problems: unemployment, poverty, young people with nothing to dream about. That is why so much of his work starts there.

The Ksar Said pitch, with a mural of Karim Gharbi and the youth academy

The pitch, and Ronaldinho

The football pitch of his childhood, home of Ramadan tournaments, had become a place for alcohol and drugs. Neighbours sent him photos: their wives could no longer sit on the balcony. He rebuilt it as a tartan pitch and set up youth academies.

Then he kept a promise few believed: in May 2022 he brought Ronaldinho to Ksar Said. The children slept in their kit the night before. Ronaldinho, who also grew up in a favela, toured the neighbourhood and played a small match.

August 2020Béja1:08

Water for Laafareg

After three years without running water, residents were drawing water from a muddy stream. A well and water point funded by Karim opened in August 2020; residents named it after him.

Original video on Instagram