Icelandic man's 'BuyPens' campaign sends sleepy little girl to school

zwiebel

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When chocolate factory worker Abdul Halim Attar fled the bombed out ruins of his town in Syria with his wife and children and found himself in the infamous Yarmouk refugee camp there, he thought things couldn't get any worse.

They did though, because when the family fled again, to Beirut in Lebanon, his wife left him and their son and daughter. Alone with two children and forbidden to work as a refugee, Abdul eked out a living selling pens on the street. With no access or money to send his kids to school, he carried his little girl Reem everywhere with him, sleeping on his shoulder.

Icelandic web developer Gissur Simonarson who was in Lebanon following the journeys of refugees, snapped a photo of the pair this week which immediately touched the hearts of many and left him inundated with people wanting to help. He appealed via a new twitter account named BuyPens for people in Beirut to help him refind the man (whose name he didn't even know) and within 30 minutes received information from someone who had seen Abdul earlier that day. The search was on.

Over two tense days, Abdul was tracked down. At that point, Simonarson started another campaign to raise $5,000 to help Abdul and his children. It raised over $125,000.

Abdul says he is grateful he can now afford to send his children to school, but his deepest wish is not for money but to return to a peaceful Syria like the one he used to know. He intends to use the money to help other refugees. Sleepy little Reem, now fully awake with all the attention, is just thrilled and said a big thank you.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...-raised-from-indiegogo-campaign-10478271.html

http://www.cbc.ca/m/news/trending/p...-his-daughter-raises-100k-overnight-1.3207807
 

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Awe man. That picture is priceless. :)
 

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