Testimonial from Cécile Thiebault in algerian desert
AUTISM SAHARA CHALLENGE 2023
Testimonial from Cécile Thiebault, who had an unforgettable experience with us in the vast Sahara.
« Personally, my testimony is intended to be a tribute, first of all, a tribute to you, Laïd, the initiator of this challenge. Because beyond the images that will circulate, each more breathtaking than the other, you allowed us to act in resistance, the most beautiful that can exist: resistance to indifference.
There are deserts more arid than others, and the parents of autistic children and all those who fight to find their place in the world – because they are different – know what we are talking about.
You allowed us to understand that in empathy, solidarity, laughter but also shared suffering, it is faith, beyond all confessions, that allowed us not to give up. The faith that you placed in each and every one of us to be able to surpass ourselves and become messengers in our turn.
Because there, ‘the wind blows so strongly that it can be heard all the way to Paris,’ sang our Tuareg friends, and it is up to us to sing again so that it can be heard here, in our pretentious modernity and our small bourgeois comforts. A tribute also to all of you, the parents too often forgotten, who allowed us through the images of your children that you entrusted to us to be part of the journey, to understand that nothing is worse than not being seen or heard.
Your messages that continue to pour in confirm that this challenge is not in vain. And how not to turn to history, which is there to testify that every small gesture, every raised fist, from one continent to another, is able to change the course of things, or more modestly, to contribute to the fight against forgetfulness and easy criticism.
For travel enthusiasts and thrill-seekers, this journey is not for you if you do not hear the sublime songs that accompanied us, guided by you, Laïd, by you, Moussa, and your Tuareg family, by you, parents wallowing in their difficulties, and that we, humble hikers, took up in chorus. »
Cécile Thiebault
