BULAWAYO – The Albino Charity Organisation of Zimbabwe (ALCOZ) has launched a campaign meant to educate communities against stigma and also to detach themselves from negative and often harmful myths associated with the condition.

Some African communities still entertain beliefs that albinism is associated with curse and witchcraft.

Others also have unhelpful beliefs that sleeping with a person with albinism brings luck or can be a form of casting away bad spirits.

Speaking to ZimLive during the Sanganai/Hlanganani World Tourism Expo in Bulawayo last week, ALCOZ Projects and Finance Director George Mafararikwa said people with albinism still face stigmatisation, marginalisation and the myths.

To counter this, he said, they are engaging various community leaders such as headmen to demystify and build positivity around the condition.

“We move around the country doing our outreach programmes conscientising leaders in communities such as traditional leaders about cultural beliefs and myths surrounding albinism so that we can be in the same platform and the end goal being to garner more support for this constituency,” he said.

ALCOZ is a brainchild of Loveness Mainato, a mother to two children with albinism who says she faced rejection from both family and society in 1999 after giving birth to a child with albinism.

She found herself having to raise her children alone when she got dumped by her husband and would later form the organisation.

“I was shattered when I realised that people who should have been supporting me deserted me, my husband abandoned me while society also called me names,” she said.

“There are many myths surrounding albinism in Zimbabwe; some people in society would call me sorts of names labelling me a witch or a prostitute.”

Through the association, Mafararikwa said they have lobbied government to come up with a budget aimed at procuring skin care products needed by people living with albinism.

“We are lobbying government for funding; we want them to realise that this constituency is very critical and needs to be assisted since it has always been stigmatised and marginalised over time,” he said.

“People living with albinism have very delicate skin and products to remedy this always come at exorbitant prices; for example, a small bottle of sunscreen costs around US$15.

“An individual may need to go through three bottles per month and that is too much.

“Once they don’t get all the necessary soaps and lotions needed for their skin, they develop sores that progress to skin cancer and given the current erratic weather, we have recorded an upsurge in such cases.”

According to a report by the Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency in 2022, there were 9,753 people living with albinism in the country.

Albinism is a genetic condition whereby an individual’s body cannot produce enough melanin and therefore suffer from various skin infections that lead to skin cancer if left untreated.