Azzi grew up in Beirut, Lebanon, in a conservative Christian family, during a civil war which divided Beirut between the East (the predominantly Christian side) and the West (the predominantly Muslim side).[3] He moved to Paris in 2000, where he earned a degree in engineering, multimedia, and communications and became involved in LGBTQ activism.[3] As a gay man who had grown up in Lebanon, he wanted to set up a centre in Beirut similar to Paris's LGBTQ Centre, to give LGBTQ people opportunities he had lacked.[1] He co-founded Helem (which means "dream" in Arabic) in 2004.[3]