Every week, tattoo artist applies stick-on tattoos for woman with Down syndrome

Every Friday, Suzie Barry walks into Muscle and Ink tattoo studio in Hamilton, New Zealand, and has a stick-on tattoo applied to her arm.

Barry has Down syndrome.

Tattoo artist Jason Ward treats Barry as any other client — except that he doesn’t charge her. He puts on his gloves, sticks on her temporary tattoo, and watches her walk away, anticipating her return the following week.

The weekly tattoo sessions started four months ago.

"The first time she came in, she just walked in, slapped a couple of stick-on tattoo packets on the desk and asked me to put them on her arm. I said, ‘what?’ And she said it again so I sat her down and put them on," he told the New Zealand Herald.

Ward’s weekly act of kindness gained international attention when a photo of Barry and Ward was posted on Facebook.

"It started out as something quite funny though, I mean, who does that? Who walks into a tattoo shop to get stick on tattoos? But if she was a member of my family and she had have walked into another tattoo shop and they had told her to bugger off, I’d be angry. Why would you say no? You should treat everybody the same,” Ward said.

“She’s just started to get a little more comfortable now, and I try and engage with her more to get her talking. I didn’t even know her name until Monday, when everything went nuts on the internet but I still don’t know a lot about her.”

Ward told the New Zealand Herald that since the photo went viral, people have been contacting the studio, hoping to send Barry some stick-on tattoos.

While he’s touched by the outpouring of generosity, Ward hopes his act of kindness encourages others to look out for others closer to home.

"But there are people in the community that you can do this for. It’s great that people want to do something for Suzie, but they could look a little closer to home," he said. “If you just do one thing for one person everyday that makes them smile, then that’s your day. If everybody does that then everybody’s smiling.”