Three North American nonprofit organizations that invest in scleroderma research are jointly trying to raise awareness about the autoimmune disorder.
Their efforts include posting information and urging people to pledge to raise awareness about the disease on Facebook and Twitter channels throughout June, which is Scleroderma Awareness Month. The partners in this campaign – Scleroderma Foundation, Scleroderma Research Foundation, and Scleroderma Society of Canada – have named their project, “Hard word. Harder disease.”
The campaign includes blogger outreach and sclerodermaaware.org, which serves as the landing page for the pledge and includes links to facts about the disease, organizers of the campaign, and scleroderma patients’ stories.
“Our strategy is to compel those who are not immediately impacted by scleroderma to relate to the disease, and therefore be more likely to empathize,” Robert J. Riggs, chief executive officer for the Scleroderma Foundation,said in a written statement.