Magdi Yacoub Foundation I Lonesome Traveler I 2022

This beautifully-shot ad by the Magdi Yacoub Heart Foundations opens with a grainy shot of four young children flying a kite. A smiling woman appears and leads one of the boys to a car, where a man is standing, loading luggage into the trunk. The boy hugs his friends goodbye before leaving in the car. One of the girls starts singing “O lonesome traveler” before the scene cuts back to the boy and his parents, who are now boarding a train together. The boy’s friends are next shown at school without their friend. They resume singing the song. The ad travels back and forth between shots of the boy and his parents riding various forms of transportation, and the children, who continue to sing melancholically. The ad ends with the three children sitting in front of the sea with their kite, while the boy arrives at a hospital and prepares to enter surgery. The exhausted parents wait outside, fearful and teary-eyed. The Magdi Yacoub Foundation reminds us that the journey toward recovery is long and that donations to the Foundation could help make the lives of those in need of surgery and medication easier.