In Amarico, the official language of Ethiopia, Melkam It means “good”. And it is the name of a 35 -year -old Ethiopian woman, blind from birth, which has become the protagonist of the animated short film “Melkam – beyond the boundaries of disability”, presented on 23 July at the film festival for young Giffoni Film Festival on the theme “Becoming Human”, which will end on Saturday 26 in the country in the province of Salerno.
Just fifteen, Melkam had to abandon his studies because of the economic difficulties that have also forced her to a forced marriage and ask for alms on the street. But at 31, thanks to a training project for inclusive job placement, she was hired by a textile company in Addis Abeba. Becoming an expert and appreciated weaver, today it provides for the sustenance of her three daughters together with the new husband. To create the short shortness of almost 7 minutes, the NGO Vis (international volunteering for development) thanks to the contribution of the Ethiopian students of Graphics Design of the Salesian Technical School Mekanissa, at Addis Ababa: Melkam met them personally by telling his story, subsequently the boys worked in the classroom for a week, then the short was aimed at Italy even in the version accessible to people with visual disabilities, who will be able to use them through visual disabilities. The audiodescription uploaded by Arte Project on the Moviereading App available on Android and Apple, thanks to the collaboration with the National Association of Subvents and describing, a method to make the contents of visual art works and museum paths accessible accessible and blind and blind using the evocative potential of language.
The production of the short was possible as part of the “I-LEAD: job placement and digitization” project, financed by the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation and implemented in Ethiopia by the Vis NGO in collaboration with Salesians of Don Bosco in Ethiopia, ECDD (Ethiopian Center for Disability and Development), CBM Italia and Ethical Hotel; This project aims to strengthen access to professional training, the labor market and the social inclusion of people with disabilities and young people in vulnerability in Addis Ababa, in the region of the Oria and Ethiopia of the South.
“Sometimes I think young people are really ready to practice inclusion and tell them this story so significant will be an emotion for all of us,” said Daniele Cassioli, Paralympic athlete of the world of water skiing and testimonial of Vis, who presented the short to Giffoni together with the president of Vis, Michela Vallari. «Blindness is not always represented in the imagination of disability: if I think for example of my world, that of Paralympic sports, the mind goes to prostheses and prams and a few times the attention is placed on visual disabilities. In addition, here the protagonist is facing other challenges in the challenges: it is fascinating to explore the theme of vulnerability that does not only concern those who do not see, but can be lived by each of us “, he underlined. Melkam, therefore, is a history of redemption and social integration that the language of animation tells in its drama but also in its concrete possibility of change.
