While tattoos are generally considered a cosmetic enhancement, a type of body decoration, or a mode self-expression, for many women and men, they are an important part of the healing from and concealing traumatic injuries.

Basma Hameed, a tattoo artist based in Canada, uses her skills in “paramedical tattooing treatments” to provide a life-changing options to burn victims who wish conceal their scars or at least make them less prominent. Hameed tells CBC news that she became a tattoo artist to treat her own scars. When she was two years old, her face was severely burned with hot oil in a kitchen accident. After receiving over 100 treatments for her injuries, surgeons told her that there wasn’t much more that could be done to conceal her scars. She decided to become a tattoo artist.

Now, Basma Hameed uses her skills to help women like 17 year-old Samira Omar. When Samira, a Canadian citizen, was living in the United Kingdom, she was brutally attacked by her classmates with boiling hot water. When Samira’s scars heal, Hameed has offered her services to the teen for free.