Abbas has created seven cartoons, from which ten copies of each will be converted into unique digital assets and sold as NFTs on the OpenSea marketplace. The collection, called "Windows", refers to the significant experiences of Abbas, who grew up in Yarmouk, a Palestinian refugee camp on the southern outskirts of the Syrian capital Damascus.
Abbas has appeared in publications such as Le Temps et La Liberté in Switzerland and Le Monde in France. He is also a member of the Cartooning for Peace organization, a network of press cartoonists committed to promoting freedom and democracy. In 2014, Abbas received the International Editorial Cartooning Award in Geneva.
UNHCR is not, however, the first organization to join the world of non-fungible tokens for charity. Last summer, His Holiness Pope Francis also launched his first collection of NFT works of art. So, while UNHCR thinks of supporting a war-torn population and the Pope a foundation for education, someone else has used the NFT formula for environmental problems. In March 2020, F1 Delta Time launched an “Australia Edition 2020” NFT with a charity auction specifically to support bushfire recovery efforts in Australia.
The same idea was then replicated in Italy last July, when the cultural association The AB Factory, with the participation of Antonio Marras from HACKATAO and other international artists, made available its NFT digital works in support of Sardinia, which was hit by a violent fire.