ND Fighting NTDs is a student-run group from the University of Notre Dame. This week marks their second annual ND Fighting NTDs Awareness Week. Below is a blogpost authored by Eileen Lynch, Publicity Chair for ND Fighting NTDs, detailing how far the group has come during the past year, and what this year’s NTD Awareness Week will bring:
By Eileen Lynch
Since I first posted a year ago, ND Fighting NTDs has grown exponentially and accomplished so much more than we ever hoped. We first started our little club on campus with a two pronged mission: we hoped to raise awareness, to educate people about Neglected Tropical Diseases, and we hoped also to raise money to combat the diseases. So far, we’ve had incredible success.
When we first introduced the NTD issue on the Notre Dame campus we constantly fielded questions along the lines of ‘what does that stand for?’ and ‘are they really neglected if you have a club for them?’ as well as comments about how cheery the name sounded (!). These days, I find myself facing these comments less and less, but people still don’t comprehend the full scope of devastation and pain caused by the diseases.
In response, ND Fighting NTDs started off Awareness Week 2011 with two intense informational events. The first, an outdoor documentary screening on the main quad of campus, featured two fantastic films from the BBC Survival Series: “Distant Places, Forgotten Lives,” and “The Hidden Invaders.” We wanted students to see the faces of these diseases, to get them to realize that NTDs cause physical, visible damage.
