Over 5 million people globally and about 20.000 Greeks among them, live with Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis, diseases also known as Idiopathic Inflammatory Bowel Diseases (IBD).
Each year on 19 May, the World IBD Day is celebrated by organizations of patients from all around the world, aiming at informing and raising public awareness over IBD. On the occasion of the World IBD Day, the European Organization of Patients with Crohn’s Disease and Ulcerative Colitis, the European Federation of Crohn’s and Colitis’ Associations (EFCCA), together with its 31 members , among which the Greek Association of People with Crohn’s Disease and Ulcerative Colitis, and other global patient organizations, they all joined forces for the campaign “Improving the quality of life of people with IBD” in order to sensitize and inform the audience, and pave the way for improving the life of the people who live with IBD.
For this campaign, upon permission of local authorities, and global municipal and peripheral authorities, famous buildings were illuminated with purple color (the color of the World IBD Day). The images of the famous lit up buildings were published on a national and international level across various social media (under the hashtags #unitedwestand2017 and #worldibdday2017). In Ioannina, the selected building to be illuminated was Zosimaia Library, which was also the only lit up building in Epirus.
