Hi, everyone! Have you ever heard that a photograph could change the life of a person? Photographs are the most important icons of our life or of our world. They are crystalized copies of the reality. Think about beautiful photographs, like those capturing the best moments of your life or the key moments of our history , such as the photo, “V-J Day in Time Square” by Alfred Eisenstaedt. It immortalized an American seaman kissing a girl, whom he didn’t know beforehand. It frames the happiness for the end of the second World War. But there are also pictures which immortalized bad moments of our life and our world… The photograph seems like an simple image but it is the passport for the freedom of a child, Mustafa, and his family. Today I’d like to tell you the story of this child and his family and to explain to you how a photograph could change the life of a family.
THE SIENA PHOTO AWARDS
Every year in Siena they hold a photography
contest, the Siena Photo Awards. This festival brings a lot of shows, workshops,
conferences to international young photographers. In 2021 the photo above, “The
Hardship of Life” by Turk photographer Mehmet Aslan, became the absolute winner
of the awards. In this picture Mustafa and his father , Munzr, are featured and
it shows the effect of the war in Syria.
CAN A PHOTO MAKE THE DIFFERENCE?
Mustafa is a 6 years old child who was born limbless; he has a beautiful family made up of
his two sisters, Nur e Sacide, his mother, Zeynep, and his father. When his
mother was pregnant, she and her husband were victims of a bomb in the market
of Idlib, in Syria, where she breathed a nervine gas and he lost his leg. Three
years later the bomb, they wanted to leave Syria and they went to Hatay, a Turkish
province, with their children. Mustafa lived with his family there, when the
world saw his photo and everything changed. After being awarded at the Siena Photo
Awards, a crowdfunding, called “Can a photo make a difference?”, was started by
the Siena Awards on the platform GoFundMe and it raised 150 thousand euros.
That money
was meant to buy artificial limbs for Mustafa and his father, to help the
family to go to Italy and for the general needs of the family. Simultaneously to
the crowdfunding, the Italian embassy in Ankara and The Farnesina started the search
for the family. When they found them,
they were invited to Rome where they arrived on 21st January 2022. Mustafa and
his family are hosted by the volunteers of the Caritas in Siena, where they were
quarantined and they awaited to start their pre- operation procedures.
These are Mustafa’s first steps toward
receiving prostethics, he will have to undergo an operation and after it, Mustafa will be moved to a specialized centre,
Budrio, in Bologna.
I think you can positively answer the question now…
this story is so touching and beautiful that I wanted to share it with you. Today
this family can have a new beginning, Mustafa and his father can improve their
lives, they can learn to walk with with their new prosthesis and Mustafa’s
sisters and he can go to school, which is the thing they dreamt about, when
they lived in Turkey. So it will be like they’ve received wings to fly in the
wind of a new life, rich of beautiful moments that could be captured in new
photos. Good to know solidarity can
fight indifference and break down barriers.
Giorgia, 3sc
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