Restoring Dignity: A film screening and panel discussion
The MSF film screening and panel discussion event took place on Monday 29 April 2024 at the Ciné Lumière in South Kensington.
Restoring Dignity is a documentary by French filmmakers Claire Jeantet and Fabrice Catérini, produced by Inediz, in collaboration with MSF.
It follows the story of noma survivors at the MSF-supported Sokoto Noma Hospital in Nigeria. This hospital is one of only a few worldwide to offer specialist treatment and reconstructive surgery for survivors of this devastating disease.
Noma rapidly destroys the tissue and bones of the face, causing death if left untreated. It affects around 140,000 people each year, most of them children. For the one in 10 people who survive, it can cause life-threatening physical impairments and debilitating social stigma.
At the end of last year, the World Health Organization (WHO) officially recognised noma as a neglected tropical disease. This hugely welcome step will help raise awareness, catalyse research, stimulate funding, and boost efforts to control noma.
The panel discussion that followed comprised of the filmmaker, Claire Jeantet; a noma expert, Dr Mark Sherlock; and a noma survivor, Fidel Strub. They each talked about their experiences of noma and explained the importance of the WHO decision in shining a spotlight on the disease.
It was a moving and insightful evening that helped to raise awareness of noma, a preventable and treatable disease that should no longer exist but remains unknown.
We do not have a recording of the panel discussion but if you would like to watch or rewatch the film Restoring Dignity, it is available to rent for £3.45.
The Panel and Chair
Dr Natalie Roberts – MSF UK Executive Director (Event Chair)
Natalie became executive director of MSF UK in October 2022 after first joining MSF in January 2012. Her first assignment with MSF was as a medical doctor in an emergency response to a typhoon in the Philippines. She quickly moved from clinical work into operational management as an emergency coordinator and continued working for three years on back-to-back assignments mainly in zones of conflict and violence, including in Aleppo, Syria, East Ukraine, Central African Republic and North Yemen. In 2016, she became the head of emergency operations for MSF in Paris and led MSF’s response to nutritional crises in Northeast Nigeria and Chad, along with responses to outbreaks, conflict and natural disasters worldwide.
Last November, she returned to Nigeria to visit Sokoto and Zamfara, areas in the northwest of the country where a huge nutritional crisis is ongoing, and where she was also able to observe MSF’s surgical intervention at Sokoto Noma Hospital.
Claire Jeantet – Filmmaker
Award-winning documentary filmmaker, Claire is passionate about creating content with meaning and depth. In 2008, she co-founded the French production company Inediz, along with Fabrice Catérini. Focused on long-term visual work, she captures the daily lives of resilient people transformed by a key moment. Believing in the power of stories to change the world, she collaborates with media, international organisations, and NGOs.
Her main field of interest is social issues, with a focus on refugees, women’s rights, and access to health care. In 2016, she began documenting the stories of noma survivors and co-directed and produced two documentaries about this topic, Restoring Dignity and Surviving Noma. After going on to manage MSF’s noma campaign, she is still very much involved in raising awareness about this preventable and treatable disease.
Dr Mark Sherlock – Health Programmes Manager, MSF
Mark has worked as a medical doctor with MSF in a number of MSF's medical humanitarian responses. As health programmes manager, Mark’s work covers Nigeria, Iraq, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Malaysia. Since being a programme manager covering Northwest Nigeria, Mark has been an advocate for noma to be recognised as a neglected tropical disease and for more funding, research and resources to be prioritised in efforts to respond to the rare disease.
Fidel Strub – noma survivor and advocate
Born in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, Fidel is a noma advocate committed to raising awareness at the global level. In 2022, he co-founded Elysium, the first noma survivors’ association, with Mulikat Okanlawon, another survivor based in Nigeria.
Fidel was first affected by noma as a young child. He survived thanks to a campaign run by the NGO Sentinelles, which used radio broadcasts to raise awareness of the disease and where patients could find medical care. Fidel later travelled to Geneva, Switzerland, to receive reconstructive surgery. He was adopted by Swiss doctors and underwent a total of 27 operations throughout his childhood and adolescence. Fidel later learned watchmaking and went on to study commerce. Through Elysium, he and Mulikat are fighting to raise awareness of noma so no other child has to suffer this disease’s terrible consequences.
