Brigitte Alfred,

"Beauty with Purpose"

I represented Tanzania in the Miss World beauty contest in 2013 in Indonesia. The theme that year was “Beauty with Purpose”. I presented a project on issues affecting people with albinism in Tanzania which emerged third runner-up worldwide in the Beauty with a Purpose category.

I was later appointed by the Tanzania Albino Society as their goodwill Ambassador in both the local and international arenas. Since then, I have had a platform to carry out initiatives to support and campaign for the rights of people with albinism in Tanzania through advocacy in Parliament, seminars, media, and social media campaigns.

A sustainable home

In 2012, I came upon the Buhangija Centre for children with albinism and disabilities in Shinyanga, Tanzania. Buhangija was at over capacity as a refuge to 310 children with albinism who had fled their homes in fear of their lives due to the rising demand for their body parts used for witchcraft purposes. The boys were faced with particular difficulties as they did not have enough dormitories and had to sleep in tents as the girls and smaller children were given priority in housing.

I began construction for a dormitory to house 60 children to alleviate the capacity problem: children had to reside in centres due to rising insecurity in their communities and parents abandoning their children not wanting the burden and stigma from their community of having a child with albinism. At that time, the plight of people with albinism was silent, which made it challenging to get sufficient support.

However, through advocacy and spreading awareness for the need to support people with albinism, the dormitory was completed in August 2015 and currently houses 75 boys with albinism and disabilities. In striving to enhance the living conditions at Buhangija, we then installed solar lights around the school perimeter to improve security, reduce amenities costs and improve its aesthetics while supporting the UN SDG goal number 7 on affordable and clean energy.

Life skills for youth

The Brigitte Alfred Foundation (BAF) was founded in April 2014 as a Trust in Tanzania with the aim of highlighting the plight and advocating for the rights and social integration of persons affected or affiliated with albinism, and to create programs and a variety of interventions designed to empower and improve the lives of the peoples with albinism in Tanzania and Africa at large. BAF has been the medium to continue my work for people with albinism after my reign as Miss Tanzania 2012 came to an end.

The Foundation’s maiden project was in collaboration with the ITS TYME entrepreneurship training program of Junior Achievement Tanzania which trains youth with albinism in entrepreneurship, financial literacy, employability skills and life skills so they can create micro enterprises to become economically sufficient. Seventy youth with albinism were successfully trained in Dar es Salaam and Kigoma regions and they have evolved into successful entrepreneurs, gained employment and even employed others in their communities. The BAF Empowering Marginalized Entrepreneurs (EME) program was then launched to train not only youth with albinism but also other youth with disabilities and we have so far successfully trained 30 youth in Geita region under EME.

Hope

Over the years I have developed friendships and bonds with amazing people with albinism that I meet, all of whom would like to see an end to the issues people with albinism face in Tanzania. It gives me great hope to see more organizations worldwide aware and fighting for the rights of people with albinism in Tanzania, Africa and the world.

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For more information about Brigitte and her work:

Facebook: BrigitteAlfredFoundation
Twitter: BAFoundation
Instagram: BAFoundation
Website : www.brigittealfredfoundation.org*

*The UN Human Rights Office is not responsible for the contents of external links.