The answer is public education, one of the two mandates of Under the Same Sun. We are really the only international NGO in Tanzania working on this issue. Recently we've been fortunate to forge some partnerships with the Red Cross and UNICEF, who have both said to us that they support us as the NGO in Tanzania on this issue.
Our goal, as I said earlier, is to do it primarily through the distribution of this film. The largest private media network in Tanzania is owned by a man by the name of Reginald Mengi. He's become a personal friend of mine. He is a strong advocate for human rights and the disabled community, and he has told me that he will take our film and broadcast it on prime-time television across Tanzania.
We have strong relationships with the media. Tanzania has a free press. That's one beautiful thing about this country; some African countries don't have it. Freedom of the press has been a huge asset to us. Whenever I land in the airport in Tanzania, I have a dozen journalists wanting to interview me.
We do constant public education. We also take people with albinism who have been successful in Tanzania.... For instance, one fellow who is a partner with us is a lawyer, in fact the dean of a faculty of law in Tanzania. He has albinism, and he makes his voice known.
So you're right, the answer is public education. It's not going to happen overnight. How did Hitler motivate a country to kill millions of Jewish people? Because he somehow convinced many people that the Jewish people weren't like us. They were inferior to us. We could experiment on their bodies for medical research because they were animals, basically. It's interesting to me to see how this same dynamic is at work in Tanzania.
So public education is a big part of it. We're doing that through our educational programs, brochures, films, and so on. Even in our office in Tanzania, we have ten people with albinism on our staff, and all have university degrees.
Perhaps you'll permit me one brief vignette. There's a presidential election under way right now in Tanzania. It's actually going to happen October 31. Witchcraft is often used during times of elections. Candidates consult witch doctors to try to get elected. In the process of this election campaign, there was a man with albinism running for a seat as an MP, in the opposition party. The albino man's opponent, the incumbent MP, did not have albinism. The opponent and his campaign manager said publicly that people with albinism have bad memories and don't think well due to a lack of vitamin C; the sun affects them and they don't think well. This was a public statement made by a member of Parliament and his campaign manager. They told people they shouldn't vote for the albino candidate because “albinos don't think well”.
Well, we had the wonderful opportunity to convene a press conference and have this man, who works with us, who is an albino lawyer, say, “I assure you, sir, my memory works very well. I'm the Dean of the Faculty of Law, and I assure you that people with albinism will remember for a long time what you have said.”
So education and advocacy are the solutions. To the extent that perhaps our High Commission in Tanzania, through the High Commissioner there, can come alongside us and support us in this endeavour in Tanzania, we can make a difference on the ground.