UK Wins First Prize for World Ostomy Day 2009
November 2010
World Ostomy Day takes place every three years. This was celebrated on 3rd October 2009. The worldwide campaign in the lead up to this day is designed to raise awareness by highlighting to the general public and global community the challenges faced by Ostomates. The theme for 2009 was "Reaching Out".
The UK embarked on a campaign designed to ‘reach the masses’ with activity including targeting highly populated city centres with an interactive exhibition stand within several leading UK Shopping Malls including Manchester, Glasgow, Reading and Birmingham.
In addition to education and the chance to talk to a representative from the specialist nursing organisation, WCET UK, and nurses and representatives from the patient support groups, IA, UA, CA and the children’s charity BreakAway; activities such as free face painting for the children were offered to provide an opportunity to talk to the adults. The time it took to paint the children’s faces gave the adults an opportunity to learn more about World Ostomy Day, buy promotional items and make donations.
Branded promotional items such as attractive canvas shopping bags (bags for life), trendy wristbands and pin badges were available for a minimum donation. In addition, a free prize draw to win a Nintendo Wii attracted people to the stand.
In recognition of the intense level of activity and success in terms of communicating with the general public on mass, the UK entry was awarded first prize in the European Region of the Merit Award sponsored worldwide by Coloplast.
Commenting on the award, Anne Demick, national secretary of IA, said “We are delighted that the UK has been recognised in this way and it is a wonderful end to our 2009 campaign. The activity does not end here and we will continue to develop more weird and wonderful ways to get our messages across to the UK general public.”