World Young Rheumatic Disease Day – WORD Day 2024 

Dear Colleague,

We write to you on behalf of the WORD Day Committee.  

As you know, World Young Rheumatic Disease Day (or WORD Day) is being held on Monday 18th March 2024. Last year we came together as a global community and spread awareness that children and young people are affected by rheumatic diseases, and highlighted the impact this can have on their lives. Our webinars were again well attended and supported – thank you to all those that took part and joined us.  

Once again, we saw a huge variety of great events held across the globe arranged by patients, parents, charities, hospitals, health care professionals, doctors and nurses. Thank you so much to those who helped make last year a big success!

We are now excited to look forward to WORD Day 2024!

We again need you! 

Your support and help in spreading awareness, arranging local events and sharing the stories and experiences of our children and young people who live with a rheumatic disease is vital. How you or your organisation decide to mark the day is very much down to you. We know that every country, charity and organisation is unique and will have different levels of time and resources available. There is no right or wrong way to mark WORD Day, and the day is for everyone to get involved in the way that works for them.

Your charity, hospital and organisation can get involved and support the day in a number of ways….

One easy way for our charity partners and rheumatology colleagues to get involved is by being active on a variety of social media platforms. As in previous years, there will be an international social media campaign involving Twitter, Facebook, Instagram. This could involve interaction with our Twitter, Facebook and Instagram pages or sharing individual stories online, uploading real life examples of the challenges faced by children and using our hashtag #WORDDay2024

The very first thing we’d invite you to do is share our WORD Day video across your own social media channels and website. It can be found here and helps highlight that WORD Day is coming, and encourages everyone to take part.

Please follow our campaign and interact on social media when you can. Together as a community we can create huge social media coverage across the globe, raising awareness and highlighting the difficulties all children diagnosed with life changing rheumatic conditions face across the world.

Following on from previous years we are planning another webinar. This year it will feature a panel of young people from across the globe sharing their stories and giving tips and ideas to others about how to live as well as possible with a rheumatic disease. More details of this event and how to register will be shared soon via our social media platforms.

Our WORD Day resources can be found on our website www.wordday.org and include posters, leaflets and information to help charities and groups explain the aim of the day and its message of awareness. This information is also available to be downloaded.

You may want to arrange your own charity events to mark the day maybe in person or online. These could include an awareness event by your own charity or organisation, a family event to bring people together or anything else you feel spreads the message that young people get rheumatic diseases and the importance of awareness.

Remember to send us any photos that you may wish us to share on our own social media channels so we can see what is happening around the world, and remember to add your activity and event to our WORD Day map so everyone can see how the day will be marked across the world.

Everyone (organisations, companies and individuals) who contributes to WORD Day can download the Ambassador’s badge from our website and then send us an email with their logo or picture and ask to be added to the list of ambassadors on www.wordday.org.

We hope you and your organisation will get involved and join us to spread the message of WORD Day 2024.

Let us come together to raise awareness for everyone across the world who has to live their childhood whilst dealing with a rheumatic disease.

Many thanks for your help and support

The WORD Day Committee