Making Starving Africans Fashionable

by Ajani Husbands
Founder | Director- The Mamelodi Project

“Everyone knows the image of a small starving black child. We have seen it so many times now, but it doesn’t work anymore,”
- Nadia Plesner

 Nadia is absolutely right.  The image of a starving Black child no longer brings forth the well of emotions it did in the early 90s among Western audiences.  The image has become commonplace, expected.  That is where the above design comes in.  The image shown above features prominently on a line of self-styled t-shirts that Nadia Plesner has designed to raise awareness for Darfur.  The concept being, in her own words:

Since doing nothing but wearing designer bags and small ugly dogs appearantly is enough to get you on a magasine cover, maybe it is worth a try for people who actually deserves and needs attention.

Nadia has an intriguing concept on her hands-  Taking an image that the world has become used to seeing (destitute Africans) and remixing it with perhaps the most recognizable symbol of America’s consumerist culture.  The intended effect is to guilt audiences into returning their focus to the frail African youths that filled our television screens along with Sally Struthers and instructive 1-800 numbers. 

The t-shirt, though an innovative construct in increasing awareness in Darfur, works solely because as a culture we are still fixated on Africa as a destitute, helpless land mass that can only be transformed for the better by our direct involvement.  The problem of “forgetting Africa” is an admirable issue to tackle on the part of Ms. Plesner.  At the same time, the end goal should not be to replicate the same destitute images that historically serve to pidgeonhole our thoughts towards Africa as ones of pity and remorse. 

Imagine if the same creativity Nadia put towards constructing this design was instead focused on drawing a design that depicted women from the various ethnic groups of Darfur, all dressed in traditional colorful garbs, each one working tirelessly at a different profession (teaching, science, medicine, etc.) and each of them saying in unison “I am the hope of Darfur.”  The shirt on its own might not make a big difference, but it would nonetheless garner questions, intrigue, and a desire to know more about who these women are and what they represent.  A similar concept would be a design depicting a Darfurian child dressed in a school uniform doing math problems on a chalkboard, with the phrase floating above him “I am the hope of Darfur.” 

These are just design concepts off the top of my head.  I am convinced designs such as these will work for the same reason that Nadia believes her shirt will draw attention and raise awareness: because they are new, unseen images of Africa that Western audiences are hardly introduced to.  If we, as observers outside of Darfur and other areas in Africa of media-interest, are to successfully fulfill a role of increasing awareness, promoting partnerships, fundraising, and educating others regarding these very places, then let us do so by prominently highlighting what few people expect or are prepared to accept: that there is already positivity taking place, and we should make sure that the world knows it.

More information on Nadia’s designs can be found here:
http://africa.reuters.com/odd/news/usnL19534474.html