Burnley artist who's sold to Mo Salah, Sadio Mane and Khabib raises £1m for charity

Foysol Al Kaatib, 33, has designed wall art for the likes of boxer Amir Khan and MMA legend Khabib Nurmagomedov.

He has also made canvasses for footballers such as Liverpool FC's Mohammed Salah, Sadio Mane and Naby Keita among others.

He started fundraising by running five kilometres every day for five months and then he carried out many different campaigns including auctioning his canvasses. He raised the funds for the charity Global Relief Trust.

He said: “I am a calligrapher and have been doing it for 16 years now, some of my canvasses sell for £15,000 some for £20,000.

"I generally raise money on my platforms on social media. In total I have 450,000 followers.

“I also deployed to the countries I raised money for. I was in Bangladesh after the recent floods and have also been to Pakistan and Lebanon. I went on ten different deployments over the space of 15 months.

“We organised a lot of events where we sold food and held live calligraphy sessions. I would basically write people’s names and whatever money was raised went to charity."

@alkaatib (Image: @alkaatib)

The father-of- three said he was recently at two events with Khabib Nurmagomedov.  

He said: “Whenever a crisis happens I raise money for the people affected including for the victims of the recent floods in Pakistan.

“I’ve also deployed to Lebanon. I generally go to disaster hit places to distribute aid.

“My biggest motivation was my late father as I started doing charity work in his name. In my first campaign I raised money really quickly, over £20,000 in a day, so I decided to carry on with fundraising.

"My motivation now is my family and the victims who I have seen first-hand including orphans.

“I feel even the £1m I have raised is just a scratch on the surface, compared to what needs to be done."

He has also been commissioned to design pieces for a number of restaurants and hotels.

Foysol said: “The live calligraphy sessions have been the biggest fundraisers. Now, when I go to an event so many people queue up to have their names written.

“We organise livelihood projects including providing people with sewing machines and boats. We build houses and shelter for the needy.”

Foysol's work with footballer Sadio Mane (Image: Foysol's work with footballer Sadio Mane)

He says his long term plans are to provide education and give the poor and destitute a way out of poverty and help them have a better future.

He added: “I have a very supportive wife. I have been travelling out to many countries.

"Every time I have to leave my family, it is a big sacrifice. Without my wife I don’t think I could have done what I have done.

“The £1m I have raised wasn’t through big donations but rather from many small donations. It was an international campaign, I had donations from Barbados, Brazil and even Australia and New Zealand. I received money from so many different countries.

“The biggest funds have come from Barbados as I received roughly £250,000 from there, mainly from clients who have bought my canvasses. My customers are from a variety of ethnicities not just South Asians.

“I want to teach calligraphy to needy people as it is a valuable skill. Calligraphy has really helped me so it will be useful for others too.”

You can follow him on Instagram: @alkaatib