Italian Association Amici di Raoul Follereau (AIFO)

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World Leprosy Day 2009

Every year the last sunday of January is celebrated as the World Leprosy day (WLD). The next WLD will be celebrated on Sunday 25 January 2009. For WLD, AIFO groups organise different events all over the country for creating awareness about leprosy in the world and for promoting discussions on themes of marginalisation, exploitation and oppression of persons.

Please support AIFO's work for the fight against leprosy in countries like India, Brazil, Mozambique, Angola, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Guinea Bissau, etc.

What do you think about the new poster of AIFO for the World Leprosy day 2009? Many years ago, in AIFO we had decided not to use images of persons with severe disabilities due to leprosy, as these were considered to promote the continuing prejudices and discrimination against leprosy affected persons.

For this reason, when this new poster for the 2009 WLD was proposed, some of us felt that this was not a good image to be used for this campaign. There were lot of discussions before this image and the accompanying message ("Salviamo la bellezza dell'uomo dalla lebbra" - literally, it means "Saving the human beauty from leprosy") were chosen by our Board. The justification for choosing this image and the accompanying message were:

"Often we stop at the superficial concept of beauty that is dictated by current fashions, but the concept of beauty is still alive through the noble artistic expressions of the past and the present and it represents the deeper relationship between humans and the nature. Leprosy as a disease is full of symbolism, and for this reason it is seen as taking away not just of external harmony of the body but is also seen as deformation of the inner human dignity. Thus the idea of "saving the human beauty" is about the invincibility of human dignity for all human beings, and not just about preventing external disabilities."

This campaign material will be used exclusively in Italy, where leprosy is no longer an endemic disease, though every year a small number of active cases are detected  among the immigrants. This WLD campaign will focus on AIFO's work for leprosy affected persons in India.

Comments about this poster

From Mr. Doug Soutar, General Secreatary of ILEP: 

I am afraid I do not like the poster for a number of reasons. Firstly, the image is of an ancient statue and perhaps serves to perpetuate the idea that leprosy is an ancient disease and something of the past. Secondly, the idea of “saving beauty” also perpetuates the idea that leprosy is something which is inherently ugly. It is a challenging task for us all to promote in peoples’ minds the idea that there is more to beauty than just physical appearance.  I am all for the use of positive images but I believe it is possible for an image of a person affected by leprosy to also be presented in ways which are positive. The important thing is for the image to challenge the viewer’s perceptions and understanding and to help them see beyond the superficial ‘ugliness’ that their eye may initially behold.

This is never an easy issue to resolve but I think it is important to keep the debate going on how to tackle stigma and discrimination through addressing people’s negative perceptions.