Release by Le Bec en l’air editions of a very touching book by Jane Evelyn Atwood, Darya. The story of a Ukrainian badante, who questions both an unknown migratory phenomenon and the fate of the elderly in Europe. Jane gave us this text and these images.
This is perhaps the shortest story I’ve ever done, one week in Italy, one week in Ukraine, in an attempt to document the life of Darya, a 54-year-old Ukrainian who works as a “badante (caregiver for the elderly).
The Italians try to avoid EHPADS and prefer to employ a caretakers at home – but without any regulations, neither for salaries, nor for rest periods, nor for medical care which is often very heavy.
Darya is an extraordinary woman and a force of nature. She does not take care of an elderly person, but of four, four seriously ill sisters who all live together in the same small apartment: she takes care of their toilet, diapers, meals, cleaning, shopping, medicine.
Then we meet her two daughters and her husband, in the small village of Ukraine near Lviv, which she left to be able to help them financially and allow them to survive.
This is the story of a phenomenon of female immigration that has existed for a long time. And it is above all the story of Darya, a remarkable and courageous woman, who comes from an extremely poor village in Ukraine, trapped in a form of exploitation because she has no other way to earn a living.
Jane Evelyn Atwood, 2022
Jane Evelyn Atwood
Darya.
Story of a Ukrainian badante
Size 19×20cm
Isbn 978-2-36744-171-9
Number of pages 228
Language(s) French / English
Photographs 60 black and white photographs
Hardcover, canvas
38,00€
https://www.becair.com/
