Since 2011, the world has been celebrating World Vitiligo Day on June 25. With increasing awareness, many parts of the world (particularly North America) have started recognizing June as Vitiligo Awareness Month. Each year Vitiligo Awareness Month is becoming bigger with people with vitiligo, their families, and doctors making an effort to talk about the chronic skin disorder, raise money for research on vitiligo, and educate the world, to dispel some myths around it.
Vitiligo awareness is important for many reasons. Many do not understand it, fearing that it may be infectious or contagious, which results in uncomfortable staring or insensitive remarks toward those with vitiligo. To sensitize people about the skin condition, SupportVitiligo, India’s oldest vitiligo support network, has come up with Vitiligo Educational Talks (session on vitiligo’s impact on life, treatment options, management & importance of awareness), Daily Quizzes and Q/A Live Sessions on their social networks.
The support network’s founder, SushAmita, who has lived with vitiligo for 20+ years now, drove all these initiatives along with conceiving the #SupportVitiligoChallenge – an awareness campaign. Unite For Vitiligo proudly partnered with the support network to spread the word.
How to participate
- To take up the challenge, click or get clicked your photo with the poster featured above. At the time of getting clicked, ensure that you are holding your mobile (that displays the poster featured above) in the front.
- Post the picture on your social media networks and nominate/forward the message to 7 people in your network.
- While sharing your challenge pic, make sure to tag @supportvitiligo. And, do not forget to fill the relevant info in the template mentioned below
During this Vitiligo Awareness Month of June, I choose to spread awareness on Vitiligo by accepting the #SupportVitiligoChallenge by @supportvitiligo & choose to #KnowVitiligo by visiting www.supportvitiligo.org.
I Nominate @…………… @………….. @…………….. @……………….. @…………… @……………… @…………….. to take up this challenge by posting their photo with this poster (by holding their mobile in the front) on their social media handles along with this full message like I did. You need to nominate/forward this message to 7 people of your choice.
In closing: In some cultures, having a visible difference makes it difficult or impossible to socialize, date, and make a mark in show business (modeling, acting). This is why awareness around vitiligo is critically important, to normalize such visual difference. With more and more awareness, funding for vitiligo research will become easy. Also, public awareness will motivate private philanthropists to contribute, and help prioritization of the skin condition by federal and other funding agencies.