In the scorching streets of Beirut, a man named Abdul Halim al-Attar walked from car to car, a handful of pens clutched in his hand, his daughter asleep on his shoulder. Her small arms wrapped around his neck, her face buried in his worn shirt — a portrait of exhaustion, love, and survival.
He wasn’t begging. He wasn’t asking for sympathy. He was trying to earn enough to feed his child.
Abdul was a Syrian refugee, forced to flee his home when war tore through his country. He arrived in Lebanon with nothing — no family, no savings, no papers — just his two children and a promise he made to their mother: “I will protect them. No matter what.”
Selling pens was never meant to be his job. Before the war, Abdul had worked as a factory employee. But now, life had stripped him of everything except his dignity and his love for his daughter, Reem.
One day, a passerby snapped a photo — a man in tattered clothes, his daughter sleeping in his arms, the weight of her tiny body pressed against the weight of the world on his back. The image spread like wildfire.
People around the world saw it — and something in them broke open.
A man named Gissur Simonarson, an activist from Iceland, tracked Abdul down. “It took days,” he said later. “No one knew his name. No one had a phone number. Just that photo — a father, a child, and a handful of pens.”
When they finally found him, Abdul couldn’t believe what he was hearing: the world had seen him — and wanted to help. Gissur launched an online campaign titled #BuyPens, hoping to raise a few thousand dollars. Within days, the donations flooded in.
Over $190,000 poured from every corner of the globe.
Abdul cried when he saw the number. “For the first time in years,” he said, “I didn’t feel invisible.”
With the funds, he built a new life. He opened three small businesses — a bakery, a kebab shop, and a restaurant — employing fellow Syrian refugees. His daughter Reem began school for the first time. He started sending money to other displaced families still struggling to survive.
The man who once sold pens at traffic lights now gave jobs to people who had lost everything.
“People helped me when they didn’t know me,” Abdul said. “Now it’s my turn.”
The viral photo that captured despair became a symbol of something greater — hope, compassion, and the power of human connection. It reminded millions that even in the darkest corners of hardship, love can light the way.
Today, years later, Abdul still keeps one of those blue pens as a reminder of where he came from. When asked why he never threw it away, he smiled and said, “Because it saved my life.”
And perhaps more than that — it saved his daughter’s future.