English

To: All IBE Member Associations

Wednesday, 29 January 2014

International Epilepsy Day

Dear Member

We are writing to ask the opinion of your association to help us decide on the establishment of an International Epilepsy Day and to identify the best date each year on which to celebrate this event. A similar message is being sent to all ILAE chapters.

The creation of an International Epilepsy Day has been discussed by the IBE International Executive Committee and the ILAE Executive Committee and both have agreed its value as a way to raise the profile of the organisations, as well as epilepsy itself.

The questions are:

1. Do you agree in principle in establishing an International Epilepsy Day?: Yes__ No___

2. If you do agree that this is a good idea in principle, we would then like you to rank, in order of preference/suitability, the following three proposed dates (which appear in calendar order):

1. March 26th — known as Purple Day. There is potential for this date to clash with Easter celebrations in some years.

2. June 29th – the date on which the ILAE/IBE/WHO Global Campaign Against Epilepsy ‘Out of the Shadows’ was launched in 1997.

3. September 6^th – the opening date of the 31^st International Epilepsy Congress, Istanbul. This date is considered since it is likely that International Epilepsy Day would be launched in 2015.

We understand that local initiatives may already take place on these dates. However, it is not proposed that International Epilepsy Day would interfere with any such initiatives.

The deadline for responses is 30^th April 2014 and we look forward to hearing from you. All responses should be returned to the IBE office by email to ibeexecdir@eircom.net. You may also respond by fax to +353 1 210 8450.

With best wishes

Mrs Sari Tervonen – IBE Secretary General

Professor J Helen Cross – ILAE Secretary General