Interviewer: How did you come up with the idea of teaching make-up classes to women with visual disabilities?
Amalia Kosmidou: It was a combination of two things. First, I have always had this personal complaint, that cosmetics is so underrated as a science and art, because I believe that cosmetics is a field that combines science, art and anthropocentrism. So this was a way to relate this to the public. Technically, the idea occurred from two other things. One is that I too have defective eyesight, as I have 9 points of nearsightedness and the number is steadily growing, so my daily life is difficult without glasses. Basically, I depend on them and that is how I can related to those women. That was the pretext while the main idea was born after a discussion I was having with my mother, when instinctively we just wondered “women who can see can do it, but women who can’t see…?”
This is a very original attempt. What was the response from the Greek public for participation and support
A.K.: There was a much larger response than I had expected. Everyone embraced this attempt from the very start, from the first person, who was the professor who supervised my paper, to the very last people who happened to know about this via social media. This makes me really happy because it seems that people are becoming increasingly sensitive to such issues, they view the rest of the world with a different perspective which addresses people with disabilities as well. This is very important.
How does the learning process of make-up with visually impaired women work?
A.K.: Mostly by using the sense of touch and by memory. These women would touch things, they would grope and feel with their fingertips and they understood what they were holding or what they had next to them. They chose what to use based on the product’s containers, some of which are usually square, others are round or small, and they knew exactly what they had in them. In this process memory plays a crucial role, too. We would have the cosmetic pallets open, again we would feel them and I would see that the upper color is red and I would tell them so, while the bottom color is orange and I would again let them know. So by memory and by touch they knew exactly what they had in front of them.
You mention in your TEDx talk that “it’s more beneficial for society to have a good beautician than a bad educator”. Do you find common ground between your work and that of an educator?
A.K: My dream since I was little was to teach somewhere. The point is “what to teach”. I was never interested in teaching something teacher-like, inside the limits of a classroom and behind closed doors, something that no one cares about and have to be there because “you have to be there”. What I always wished for is to stir the person who would listen, to make them want to learn. I think that if it wasn’t for cosmetics, I wouldn’t have been able to teach, which had been a big dream for me. Therefore, I found the way to fulfill my dream, in my own way. I think these two match perfectly.
Tell us about your future plans.
A.K.: I would like to continue my voluntary work in every way. We have already completed one more voluntary action with the beauty training for women in recovery stage from cancer. I definitely want to work on volunteering while working the job that I myself have chosen and combine those two as much as possible.
You surely have a lot of intense experiences in your action so far. Which one do you think stands out the most?
A.K.: I remember people shaking my hand once people, especially people from my Technological Educational Institute, after learning what my paper is about. Actually, there were three professors in the committee and two of them didn’t know what it was all about. They were actually three strict professors and I watched them grow softer during my presentation. They didn’t ask me any questions but we had an interesting discussion among the four of us. They asked me things that were not included in my paper but which were part of the process and this made me really happy. I understood that they were moved and that I did get my message across.
What was the first thing you thought when you were invited as a speaker of TEDxAUTH and what was the reason that made you accept?
A.K.: I accepted the invitation to TED because it is something I have been watching since I was little. I would watch TED talks and that’s pretty much how I got my English language certificate (laughs). I would watch TEDx talks from countries abroad , then I found and watched talks from Greek TEDx and realized there’s pretty good material there too. That’s how I said “yes” because it was something I wanted to be part of and live it from up close.
Translation: Niki Saridaki