Standing Voice: Skin Cancer Prevention Programme 2017

- words by Anya

Across Africa, people with albinism face severe discrimination. Dehumanising myths destroy families promoting physical abuse and often abandonment. Tanzania presents a particularly severe case: since 2016 there has been 76 murders and 73 documented attacks on people with albinism.

Standing Voice is an international NGO that was founded in 2013 to defend the rights of people with albinism in Africa, especially Tanzania. The organisation works widely across health, education, advocacy and community – one week organising woodcut printing classes, the next hosting clinics for those with poor vision –  and in doing so has transformed thousands of lives.

Filmmaker Harry Freeland founded Standing Voice in 2013 following the release of Shadow of the Sun, his 2012 documentary which exposed the plight of Africans with albinism to an international audience. Zetteler’s founder Sabine has been a friend of Harry ever since they first met at university and, in 2015, Harry invited Sabine to become a trustee of the charity. It was a proposition that, quite understandably, she jumped at!

To get the most out of the trip, Sabine’s itinerary is jam-packed. 

Highlights from the week include:

—Two days spent participating in Standing Voice’s Vision Clinic. Throughout the course of the week, Standing Voice will provide care to approximately 500 children and adults with albinism.

—A day-long Skin Cancer Prevention Workshop. A total of 32 people – including Standing Voice staff members and trustees from both the UK and Tanzania, dermatologists, surgeons, Albinism society leaders, government representatives, patients and partners – will join the workshop

—Two days spent attending a Skin Cancer Clinic in Sekou Toure Hospital. Standing Voice will see roughly 180 patients over the course of two days.