Africa: Pope Francis Launches Campaign to Help Albinos
By NewsfromAfrica
VATICAN— Pope Francis has launched the international awareness campaign, “Help African Albinos”, on the site http://www.ombrabianca.com on Wednesday June 25.
It will be the audio-book read by the greatest number of people in the world and will symbolically give voice to those who have none. The international campaign has the hashtag #HelpAfricanAlbinos and will launch a petition in 6 languages on the site http://www.change.org to demonstrate closeness and ask for concrete help for African albinos, which will be made possible thanks to a partnership with various NGOs, including Doctors with Africa-CUAMM.
Any person can follow the Pope’s example and lend their voice, reading in Italian, with a multilingual translation system, a phrase from the novel, thus participating in the creation of the first social audio-book ever created.
Pope Francis recorded his voice last 30 November, reading several passages from the book “Ombra Bianco” (“White Shadow”) by the Italian author Cristiano Gentile, which seeks to raise public awareness of the situation experienced by albinos in Africa: a population often rejected and repudiated. The Holy Father was invited by the writer to close an international symposium on Africa organised by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.
The reading and the Pope’s testimony form part of a universal message of peace and brotherhood, addressed on this occasion to African albinos, living symbols of the absolute periphery, the “last of the last”.
Life is hard for albinos throughout Africa, but especially in the East African nation of Tanzania. At best, they face raw prejudice; at worst, they are hunted for their flesh, the results of superstitious beliefs.
Albino killings have been reported in a dozen African countries from South Africa to Kenya, but they are worse in Tanzania than anywhere else.
More than 100 albinos have been violently attacked in Tanzania from 2006 to June of this year — 71 died and 31 escaped, though most were maimed. The attacks are so brazen that the government has opened boarding schools for albino children for their own protection.