BUZZ NEWS

“Gegen Noma:” Help Fight the Disease

Posted on March 6, 2009
C. Werle

You have probably never heard of noma, have you? Lucky you. Noma is a gangrenous disease that leads to the deconstruction of the tissue of the face, especially of the mouth and cheek. It is probably caused by bacterial infection. Once common all around the world, including the USA and Europe, today it mainly occurs in the poorest countries in Africa, South America and Asia, in areas where hygienic conditions and nutrition are bad. This horrendous disease leaves those who suffered from it marked for the rest of their lives and often makes them to outcasts in their communities.

However, noma can easily be prevented by proper nutrition and can also be cured with antibiotics. That’s the message the German association Gegen Noma wanted to get across. In order to do so they decided to use shocking images to get people’s attention.

These realistic images show clearly how the disease progresses and that it’s most of all children who suffer from it. As the child is not placed in its original context (bad housing, no sanitation, lack of food, etc) our attention is not diverted from the person and we only see a human being that is slowly being destroyed. The clever idea of rewinding the film (not new, certainly, but very efficient) also makes it clear that this disease can be cured at very little cost. How much do 10 Euros mean to you? And how much would they mean to this child? You get the picture.

Are shocking images the only way of capturing people’s attention nowadays? In view of the often horrible pictures that daily reach us via the news we may doubt this. This campaign however keeps a clever balance. It is shocking and realistic, but at the same the images are also in a certain way aesthetic and the child’s dignity is respected.