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Mohammed comes from Morocco. He has been working in Kristalia for 4 years and he represents one of the resources that has grown in our team over the time. A few days after the lockdown that “froze” Italy and imposed the physical distance as well as the stop of all the activities, something never seen before appeared in our production department: an Elephant chair painted with the colors of the Italian flag .

The mystery of this gesture, so unusual and at the same time so surprising, was cleared when Mohammed revealed to be the author. He said he had painted it spontaneously by hand at the end of the workshift a few days before the factory closed: “for me – he said to his colleagues and friends – it was a way to thank Italy, the country that welcomed me many years ago and which is currently experiencing a terrible moment.”

This unpublished version of the Elephant chair, whose design bears the signature of Eva Paster & Michael Geldmacher and which is not mentioned in the official catalog, soon became popular even outside the production department.

We recognized in Mohammed’s gesture a perfect expression of solidarity in a difficult moment for the entire national community, so we decided to tell his story in public and show Mohammed’s hand-painted chair on Social channels. The public’s reaction was enthusiastic.

That’s why we decided to launch a small production of the Elephant tricolor chairs as soon as the requests reaches an adequate quota to cover the minimum production costs: the rest will be donated to the Italian hospitals fighting against the Covid -19.

This is how Mohammed’s personal gesture of solidarity, so genuinely passionate and closely tied to a positive history of integration in the social and productive context of Friuli Venezia Giulia, served as a model for a wider gesture of solidarity.

Anyone who decides to buy a hand-painted Elephant chair as a sign of active participation and support of the community, can contact us through our communication channels.